


the color of your cheeks (and the ink in our hearts)

by jmcats



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, a ton of shameless lourry flirting, an ode to comic books, comic book artist zayn, comic book au, intern liam, some nosh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 07:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1257643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcats/pseuds/jmcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And part of him wishes he still held onto his own dreams instead of settling for drawing a comic he doesn’t really like for a few pounds and an </i>in-the-meantime<i> that’s lasted longer than a few breaths.</i></p><p>(Zayn is a young comic book artist who takes on a summer intern that sparks the inspiration in his hands and the rush in his heart.  He doesn't know what to do with Liam.  It's a shame, really, because Zayn and Louis have one rule: <i>never date a redtag.</i>  Except, maybe they do this time)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the color of your cheeks (and the ink in our hearts)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite awful with summaries and titles this time, I apologize. I just really wanted to write a fic for all of the comic book geeks like myself (and maybe something that's not as angsty this time around).
> 
> This fic is most definitely dedicated to Lynn for encouraging me through all of it and reminding me how much the comic book store was a part of my childhood.
> 
> Here's a semi-playlist for this one: [too busy being yours to fall for somebody new](http://tmblr.co/Z72nnt17YdHnR)
> 
> WARNING: I have bent the rules of reality/practicality for this one. I don't know how internships work or the British educational system. _Violator_ and Voltage Comics do not exist and neither does this alternate universe -- but I wish it sort of did.

 

 

“Must we spend every Sunday night like this?”

Zayn lifts his eyes from his sketchpad, his pencil dragging lazily over the unclean white paper that’s smudged with charcoal and lead. His eyebrows shift upward with mild interest, the living room in his small, crummy flat cooled by the shadows of the night and the wavy stretch of bluish hues from the television. He half-cocks his lips sideways, swallowing a snort at the way Louis is standing with his hands on his hips, a scowl set into his expression and his soft, unkempt fringe almost falling over his sea salt blue eyes.

Louis is on the other side of the beat-up coffee table, the one with the chipped corner and it’s only balanced by a small stack of unpaid bills under one of the legs in the left-hand corner. He’s half-blocking the television with his small frame, a loose tank with a low-slung collar hanging limply off his shoulders and torso. His bare foot thumps against the poorly finished hardwood floors in Zayn’s flat, eyes narrowed in strict concentration like he’s trying to convey his disdain toward Zayn – which is slightly _overdramatic_ , a word that defines Louis Tomlinson without footnotes and varied synonyms.

Zayn bites on the corner of his bottom lip to withdraw the sigh that’s shoving at his tongue. He flutters his eyelashes like a _‘shut the fuck up and sit down, mate’_ but the words resign to his throat as Louis groans. He rolls his eyes, promptly, and diverts them back to his half-arsed doodling – trying to perfect the curve of a jaw, the stretch of a costume over a lithe form. His teeth catch the tip of his tongue and a swift kick to the coffee table knocks his pencil out of place, a sharp line dragging up to the right corner of the paper.

“You twat,” Zayn mumbles without looking up, using his thumb to smudge away the offending line, trying to create a shade and border like a visible aura around his drawing.

“We spend every Sunday night like this,” Louis complains, rounding the coffee table before shoving into the tight space between Zayn and the arm of the couch.

Zayn licks at his lips, nudges over to make a little more room for Louis without malice in his bones or tension in his muscles.

“Like what, Lou?” Zayn wonders, teeth scraping over the chapped edges of his lip, absently picking at the flesh.

There’s a whine in Louis’ throat, subsided by the look Zayn gives him. He lets the hum of the telly and the buzz of London traffic just outside of his window drown out Louis’ _‘you know what I mean’_ and _‘don’t you fucking dare play naïve, if that’s the right word’_ before grinning at the addition of hard lines around the eyes of his sketch, the play on stomach muscles he’s been trying to nail down for hours now.

“It’s always the same Zaynie – “

“Don’t call me that,” Zayn mutters, the words fisted against his half-bitten lips and clenched teeth but it’s hard to swallow back the smirk on his lips when Louis pokes an incessant finger at his ribs.

“ – we do this every Sunday, _Zaynie_ , you know it,” Louis continues, kicking his feet up on the coffee table with Zayn’s – bare feet and old, chunky combat boots Zayn loves even though the laces are broken and the shine is long gone. “We watch Marvel films every Sunday night. You draw, I drink wine, and neither of us get fucked.”

Zayn arches an eyebrow while his index finger shades the definition of hair, the shadows beneath a square jaw. “Who says I’m interested in getting fucked, mate?”

Louis snorts, scoffs at Zayn and Zayn doesn’t resist the need to elbow him, _hard_ , just beneath his ribcage.

“We both know you’d be the girl in our relationship,” Louis notes with an even tone, one that’s matched with smugness Zayn can taste.

“I’m taller,” Zayn mentions offhandedly. He knows, by definition, equating size and muscle dynamics to sexual dominance is both inaccurate and a sore subject for Louis but baiting him is something Zayn takes pleasure in. “Plus you’ve got short fingers. Can’t imagine you’d really do much to prep a lad properly with ‘em.”

Louis makes a wounded sound, wrapping his fingers tightly around Zayn’s left wrist but Zayn ignores it to add and erase a cape from his sketch – _too artificial and predictable_ , he thinks.

“You have no right,” Louis argues with a spare amount of venom but there’s humor behind his tongue, a grip of amusement in his playful eyes that Zayn revels in when he lifts his own. Louis leans a little closer, chin nudged onto Zayn’s shoulder with his grip tightening. “I’m quite gifted with my tongue, Malik. You’ve heard the tales.”

Zayn giggles, inching back while knocking their knees together. “I’ve heard the _lies_ , mate. There’s a definable difference.”

“Big words,” Louis sings, darting his eyes downward before adding, “Small cock.”

Zayn groans, sinks further into the secondhand couch cushions. His couch is one of those old pieces of furniture you pick up in the market, at a thrift shop – he calls it _vintage_ , Louis calls it a _mockery by design_ – and he sort of loves it. He loves that the cushions are molded to his wiry frame and some of the material is faded. He likes the way it squeaks when he’s digging his feet into it and thrusting into his hand during a lazy wank session by himself. He loves the way it’s never too warm or too cold when he sleeps on it and the way it smells like bad curry and citrus cleaner and mothballs like his elder relatives’ houses back in Bradford. It’s a cheaply bought piece of home, the one that’s not London or a bright city or synthetic –

It’s every bit of his mum’s cooking and his sisters’ laughter in the morning and his dad’s old armchair where he watches footie games on Saturdays. It’s a former life he rarely sees anymore but takes comfort in.

Zayn sighs softly, penciling in the sharpness of a cheek, the taut lines of a narrow mouth to his drawing.

“You know I do this because I’m trying to perfect my human anatomy details,” he mumbles, dragging his eyes up to the screen, flinching a little at the way Jean Grey’s eyes go black and he still shivers at the thought of Scott Summers’ demise.

Louis smirks, nudging his head to Zayn’s shoulder, his temple resting on the peak. “You just get off on the thought of Hugh Jackman pounding you,” he scoffs, tickling his fingers up Zayn’s thigh through the faded material of his acid wash jeans. “Or the idea of deep throating Chris Evans. Good old Steve Rogers or Johnny Storm, whichever helps you pop a load.”

Zayn nudges his hip against Louis’, picking at the corner of his sketch with silver-stained fingertips. “And you just like the thought of fingering Jessica Alba off while getting a handjob from James Marsden.”

“Correction – that Iceman kid,” Louis argues kindly, lifting an eyebrow decisively. “I’m a sucker for young amateurs.”

Zayn smirks, shuts his eyes to the purr of music flooding in from the streets, the way the night lights up so much of this city around him. He drums his pencil on the sketchpad, flicking the edge of his boot against Louis’ wiggling toes. He doesn’t think he’d ever adjust to London without Louis – without those small hands and that sharp tongue and that _loud, loud, loud_ brilliance that escapes Louis’ body like pheromones and neon electricity.

“Is that why you have a subscription to Sean Cody porn?” Zayn prods, smudging his charcoal-coated fingers over Louis’ tan skin until his forearm is tinted pewter underneath the low lights in the room. The contrast is sharp in the dark – the way it looks against Louis’ almost unmarked skin, that natural California glow this Doncaster kid has had since that first day –

Louis was the third person Zayn met in London when he moved here nearly two years ago, seventeen and unaware. He came after Zayn’s new boss and Zayn’s new landlord and at the right time when Zayn felt lonely and unable to breathe against the smog and undefinable roar of London. This place was nothing like Bradford and Louis was definitely nothing like Ant or Danny, obnoxious and a complete bastard when he had to be and so deliberate with his words, his touches. But Louis bought Zayn coffee on his first day – _‘You look like you need a mate,’_ Louis told him while shoving a completely black coffee at him with a loose smirk, _‘and you’ve got tattoos and too tall hair. No one here will like you.’_ – at Voltage Comics. It’s London’s leading comic book company and Louis was a wide-eyed intern looking for a job in marketing and Zayn thinks it was those incredible blue eyes and that offhanded smile, the way his hair hung sloppily over his eyes and the way Louis took him in like a lost puppy that sealed things back then.

“Amongst other things,” Louis grins, lifting his head a little to wink at Zayn before returning his attention to the screen and Jean Grey’s nails digging into Wolverine’s skin.

They chase their smiles with silence, Zayn tugging his beaten up pack of smokes from the coffee table while Louis cuddles closer like Zayn’s his tether to this world.

It’s like this between them – this bond, this friendship that’s completely impractical but it works. They diffuse the way this city swallows people alive with nights in Zayn’s flat – because Louis’ flatmate, Jordan, is a complete twat about guests and sharing his food – while Louis’ complains and Zayn smokes and they pretend this is the life they dreamed about when they were kids.

He listens to Louis complain about bad Indian takeaway from that little shop three blocks away, the one that reeks of grease and spices and Zayn sort of loves, while he lights up his cigarette. He tips his head back, stringing bony fingers through a thick quiff that’s a bit mussed but he doesn’t care. The traces of product leave his fingers sticky and he thumbs at the sharp section of blonde at the front – a poor dye job he and Louis did while on a binge of cheap tequila and cold Italian from three days before.

The smoke clouds around them like blue-grey mist. He takes slow pulls, smirking at the telly and the poor acting that he loves because, fuck, the third X-Men film was shit but so enthralling in ways he can’t describe. He picks at invisible lint on his Green Day t-shirt and drags more smoke into his lungs, exhaling it through his nose like some practiced mob boss – an old trick he picked up from Danny back home and he’s only now getting it right, at nineteen, even though Danny trained him at fifteen with their first pack of Marlboro’s and bottles of London Pride.

Louis whines softly like an ignored animal, reaching up to pluck the cigarette from between Zayn’s fingers. He huffs in a couple of drags, amateurish but he makes it look masterful to strangers. He covers a cough with a rough laugh, rolling his eyes when Zayn snatches the cigarette back, blowing half-arsed rings of smoke through tight lips.

“You know Zaynie,” Louis starts and Zayn kicks at his foot for the fuck of it, “you’re an awful fuck who gives horrible head – all teeth and spit with no effort.”

Zayn chuckles through a billow of smoke, holding the cigarette between his lips like a joint until the cherry glows a raging orange, exhaling through the corners of his mouth.

“Lou, we’ve never shagged,” he declares, nudging Louis’ knee with his own. The cuffs of Louis’ skintight jeans rolls up, exposing _‘The Rogue’_ and Zayn’s never asked Louis to define that particular tattoo because it is what Louis is – anarchy, chaos, a complete disaster in the most beautiful way.

“Yes, but I heard from that one bloke on the mail room floor about you,” Louis sighs, flicking his hand in the air dismissively.

Zayn rolls his eyes and pretends the grin Louis presses into his shoulder isn’t there to force the blush into Zayn’s cheeks. It’s only half true – he might’ve snogged some pretentious mailroom clerk during his first month there but he was high off desperation and drunk on frothy beer and the guy used too much tongue, restless hands until Zayn shrugged away with pink staining his cheekbones and his cock only half-hard.

“You’re full of shit,” Zayn insists, shrugging Louis back a little but he coils an arm around Louis’ compact body, dragging him back in while finishing his cigarette.

Louis hums appreciatively, sniffing at the dry cigarette smoke and nipping bitten-fingernails at the loose threads from Zayn’s jeans, right around the knees.

“The summer interns start tomorrow,” Louis reminds him, his voice a thick reverb of offhandedness.

Zayn tenses a little. He’d almost forgotten how April was spent inking an issue of boring banter and useless crusades before May bloomed in beautifully for a month of sketching an epic fight scene, retraining his fingers to capture the tension in muscles and the scowl of a villain he didn’t care much for – _Doctor Oblivion_ , because all comic book villains are theoretical geniuses with incredible intelligence and the need to ravage a large city.

He strokes his tongue liberally over dry lips, winces only a little when Louis’ fingers dig into the fabric of his jeans with narrowed eyes complexly concentrated on the television rather than the pale expression Zayn’s face holds.

“I’ve got sat with some kid named _Harry Edward Styles_ ,” Louis says with as much affliction as he can muster while slouched against Zayn, perfectly comfortable like a child nestled to a parent. “He doesn’t even have a Facebook page, Zee. What decade does he live in? Probably some old fuck trying to get his balls off by chasing some boyhood dream of writing for Voltage Comics.”

Zayn shakes with a quiet laugh, tightening his arm around Louis’ sternum. He snorts into Louis’ wild mane, breathing in that heady scent of peach shampoo and wildwoods cologne.

“And now I’m saddled with this fuck-munch for three whole months of my summer,” Louis groans, fingers pinching at Zayn’s thigh.

Zayn cocks his lips upward, puffing out the last of his cigarette smoke before stubbing it out in a poorly created ashtray that looks like a second year’s art project.

“I forgot,” Zayn mumbles, chewing on the edge of his lip. He doesn’t freeze but tension unravels itself over his muscles when Louis jerks up with wide eyes, a shameful smirk.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Zayn shakes his head sheepishly. He lifts his shoulders in a half-thought out shrug, tipping back a little for the garish stare Louis gives him.

“You’re a proper idiot, you know that?” Louis teases him, reaching out to cripple Zayn’s quiff with his fingers. Zayn jolts away from his touch, scowling at him. He thumps a fist to Louis’ shoulder, not one hard enough to bruise but it knocks Louis back some.

“You’ll probably get some intern from hell like that one kid from last year,” Louis sneers, arching an eyebrow with a loud laugh.

“ _You_ will always be the intern from hell, Lou,” Zayn insists, his own smirk louder than the boom of traffic or the static of Storm’s electricity across the television screen.

He grins under the pale glow of blues, chalked silvers, fuzzy whites while the television chases shadows over Louis’ smile. They nod at each other before Zayn lights up another cigarette, lets Louis bury into his side and they refocus their attention to the film rather than the start of all of this –

He thinks about how he caught _‘a lucky break’_ – it’s what his sister, Doniya, called it while ruffling his hair and hiding proud tears behind her mascara – back in Bradford at some dingy, random coffee shop in the heart of the city. Just rough sketches on napkins with a pen, doodles across the wooden tables with various Sharpie’s, a bunch of lazy drawings in some beat-up notebook – his favorite comic book characters doodled between Shakespeare quotes and exotic mathematical equations he didn’t quite understand – when some prick stumbled into the shop, caught his eye. It still soaks his memories – the way the guy actually liked his stuff, offered him an opportunity in London that he balked at because, no, _Zayn Malik, you’ll never be good enough to do this kind of shit for a career_. But the offer didn’t come attached with a _‘after you suck my dick’_ or _‘how quick can you bend over and spread for me’_ and Zayn still remembers nervously begging his mum for the chance to pursue this.

His eyes stray to a corner of the room, that old, industrial desk he sometimes draws at. It’s got one of those overhead lights that doesn’t offer much in the way of a glow, but it looks neat enough and there’s a dozen pencils, inking pens, colorful markers and his favorite mug on the corner. He smiles at that frayed notebook with half of the pages hanging off the wiring and a collection of art supplies his mum shipped him off to London with.

“Don’t even know your intern’s name, d’ya?” Louis mumbles in the dark, swallowed up by the shadows and the new smoke from Zayn’s latest cigarette.

Zayn frowns, teeth instinctively pulling at his lip. His fingers push back his hair and he hums quietly over the explosions onscreen.

He’d spent his first year at the company, just a few months shy of eighteen, trying to prove himself to a group of ostentatious artists before moving up to a secondary artist on a bunch of projects. He’d only spent the first month of last summer, at nineteen, mentoring some upstart artist who thought Sabertooth was the definition of the ultimate anti-hero – Zayn preferred characters like Grifter and spent his entire sixteenth birthday rereading back issues of _WildC.A.T.S._ while Ant and Danny got high in his windowsill – but this was his first real year taking on the internship program.

“I don’t really know what to,” Zayn pauses, teeth gripping his bottom lip a little too harshly. He kicks at Louis because of his grin, the way his eyes sparkle like mischief personified. “I really dunno what I’m doing, you know? ‘m not formally trained, haven’t had any schooling like the others. Like, I don’t think I’d be good at telling someone else how to pursue their dreams.”

Louis scoffs, knuckles shoving at Zayn’s side. He narrows his eyes instantly, shaking his head at Zayn.

“You draw _Violator_ , the most bad-arse character we have at the company,” Louis declares in that tone that Zayn kind of hates because it isn’t arrogant, but it’s a bit self-righteous. “He’s almost every kid’s favorite character and he could take Batman in a fight – “

 _Doubtful_ , Zayn thinks, stringing the word along with the phrases _‘Batman-lite, Lou, he’s a knockoff’_ and _‘that comic is complete shit and you know I hate drawing for it’_ but he’s gotten used to swallowing those things down. He’s adapted to keeping a silence about this series he was tossed into about a character he doesn’t believe in with storylines that are borderline manic but the pay is decent enough.

Still, Violator isn’t exactly the ‘ _opportunity’_ he imagined when taking up that arsehole’s suggestion back in Bradford to move to London to _‘chase a dream.’_

“ – and don’t you dare tell me you’re not any better than those old, useless fucks drawing _Captain America_ or increasing the size of Wonder Woman’s tits every other issue,” Louis demands. He shoves at Zayn again, his brow mounted and wrinkled. “Whoever the piece of shit happens to be is lucky to get you, Malik. And, if anything, it gives you something to do other than fuck off into your hand twice a night to the thought of swallowing for Gambit.”

Zayn chuckles, inching back into that cocoon of arms and entanglement Louis’ body offers him. “I don’t swallow.”

“You’re a shit liar, Zaynie,” Louis snickers, the short, barely-there scratch of his stubble dragging over Zayn’s temple. “You look like the type that swallows. Just not sure if you get off on some lad mucking up your pretty face with his spunk.”

Zayn chokes on a breath and Louis grins into his hair, fingers pinching at his cheek until the skin gives way to pain.

“You’re rank, man,” Zayn tells him, unable to shield his laughter when Louis imitates cheap porn music and licks obscenely around one finger. “I regret ever admitting to you I was into lads.”

“Admitting? Bro, you reeked of it the third day we hung out,” Louis laughs and Zayn doesn’t deliberately knock his fist a little harder to Louis’ shoulder this time, but he sort of does. “You had a chubby off that one guy at the donut shop – “

“ _You_ asked for his number,” Zayn puts in like an argument but it feels futile when Louis grins at him the way he does.

“ _For you_ ,” Louis says back, words still garbled by his snickers. “You looked hard up, mate, and a good fuck does any man good.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn grumbles but it’s not laced with hatred or spat with defiance. He threads his fingers into Louis’ soft hair, tangling them around the unruly ends, before adding, “You’re horrid and an awful best mate.”

“Fucking bullshit,” Louis mutters, easing into Zayn’s side again. He steals Zayn’s cigarette for a few pulls, tipping his head onto Zayn’s shoulder and clouding the room like the caterpillar in that drug-infused Disney version of _Alice in Wonderland_. “We could Instagram-stalk the poor bastard when you find out who he is.”

 _Idiot_ , Zayn thinks but mutes the word against his smile, shrugging Louis off with one shoulder.

He fishes his fingers into the cushions of the couch, flicking past lint and last week’s soiled boxers to peel out his phone. He blindly thumbs through it, giggling at the silent shriek that slips past Louis’ lips when Jean Grey decimates Professor Xavier on the telly before cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, carding his fingers through Louis’ mussed hair.

There’s a slow buzzing hum on his lips from a day spent listening to Usher and old David Bowie and he just needs a name, really. Just a name and maybe that’s a start so he phones up the one person he knows will help him: Leigh-Anne.

“I’ve been waiting all night to hear from you,” she purrs, the sound a righteous hymn of thick sultriness that shivers up Zayn’s spine rather than down and he flicks his tongue over his lips at the taunting smile on the other end of the phone. “Should I show up at yours in just my knickers?”

The roll of blush on his cheeks is like the barrel of ocean waves, dense and hollow at once. He swallows at the moan in her voice, like she’s desperate and seductive and all of those other filthy words his mum taught him to avoid –

He thinks, belatedly, this all started around the second week of working at the company. When he was still an earthy eighteen and still so fresh to everyone’s eyes. He was _exotic_ or _untainted_ and his skin color, the shade of his eyes in the London sun, the thickness of his hair and the curve of his smile when he really means it attracted all of the wrong kind of attention. The ink on his arm and collarbone, the shape of his torso and hips, the twist of his grin when he first met Louis. He was _dark_ and _poetic_ and he thinks everything the others thought of him were _completely wrong_ – like he was an object, untouchable, the fucking Ark of the Covenant and maybe he’s watched too much Indiana Jones growing up but still.

Leigh-Anne was just an intern then, some girl with scarlet hair, half-braided, and black-framed glasses with too tight skirts and clumsy on heels. He was a bit unnoticeable to that type then but Leigh-Anne’s been trying for months now. It stings just under the first layer of his skin, this reputation he’s warranted without asking for it: _unattainable_. Just _that bloke on the sixth floor who draws crummy panels and keeps to himself_ , he’s heard them say, not that he tried to pay attention to the buzz. Just that kid who refuses to shag company people and, no, that guy in the mailroom _doesn’t_ count. Neither does the few exploits from his first few weeks in London, still so young, still exploring the infinite definition of _‘sexual freedom.’_

“Hey Leigh,” he says, his voice a slow roll of shyness. He presses his fingers into the nape of his neck to loosen the tension, teeth clipping the corner of his lip.

Her laughter isn’t mocking but teasing. His bones ache at the smile in her tone, the reverb of sex, want, _fuck me_ in her voice before she says, “You know I’d get on all fours for you, Malik.”

His fingers fishtail through his hair and he sighs quietly, peaking down to watch Louis’ body tremble with laughter because the volume on his phone is too loud and the sound of the telly is too low now.

“Weren’t you in that company-provided sexual harassment course with me?” he wonders, tipping his head away from Louis and the glint of daydream blue eyes.

Leigh-Anne groans, a sound that’s devoid of rich lust and coy bravado. “It’s only _sexual_ and _harassment_ if there’s some sort of penetration, love.”

Zayn puffs out a sigh, sliding further into the cushions while Louis crawls up closer to listen. He pinches Louis’ side, their heads thumping in a manic attempt to one up the other with punches before Louis settles back into the other side with wild laughter and kicking feet. He scoots closer to the unused side of the couch, where it’s cold and foreign because he and Louis always corner up to the other half, too close and too friendly with each other.

He brushes back his hair, listens to her soft breathing. He fixes his eyes to a corner of the room, the one with the desk and his notebook and _a dream, Malik, you should chase it_ spilled from Danny’s mouth on the roof of his house back in Bradford a fortnight before he boarded a bus for London without a ticket back.

“Intern, Leigh. Need a name,” he pushes out over the cleft of her aching sigh, narrowing his eyes at the way Louis’ toes dig into his side.

He knows she knows – she’s just a receptionist, now, on the main floor and though she plays up to everyone with intent to advance and she’s friendly when she wants to be, she takes every aspect of her job seriously.

“Some sport from Wolverhampton,” she sighs, the words skittish like she’s biting her lip. “Honestly, doesn’t look like he can draw much. Seen some of his work on his profile sheet. He looks twelve.”

“Name, Leigh,” he groans, fingers tripping up the bones in Louis’ foot, over the sharp curve of his bare ankle. “Can I get – “

“ _Payne_ ,” she hisses, her tone far removed from interested. “Payne. Liam Payne.”

She clicks off the other end before he can utter his gratitude, not that it would come wrapped with affection and a promise of a dinner date later on, and he tosses his phone back into the cushions and throw pillows like it’s a hiding place. He eyes Louis warily because his smile is too wide and his eyes are too curious and his toes keep wiggling at Zayn’s thigh like _c’mon, out with it._

“Payne,” Zayn half-whispers, swallowing around the way the name feels on his tongue – uncomfortably foreign. “Some guy named Liam Payne.”

Louis’ laugh barks, echoes off the minimalist walls and down the small hallway to his closet-sized bedroom. He pushes his fringe back and the squint of his eyes when he grins at Zayn is unresolved mockery. Zayn drags his thumb over his lips rather than punching Louis but his spine coils around something tight when Louis lifts his eyebrows.

“You’re fucked,” Louis giggles, reaching for a forgotten beer on the coffee table and downing half of it in one go. “He sounds like a complete geek and the perfect foil to your Dark Knight.”

“I like Green Lantern,” Zayn argues, though it’s halfhearted and he’s careless about the way his dull nails scratch at Louis’ skin.

“Whatever,” Louis sighs, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling and the stupid glow-in-the-dark stickers of moons and stars the last tenant left behind before Zayn moved in. It’s a fucking constellation of Andromeda and Pegasus and completely childlike but Zayn’s never bothered to remove them.

“I bet he comes with his own action figure and an autographed copy of _the First Avenger_ DVD, via Mr. Stan Lee himself,” Louis teases and Zayn bites down on the _‘fuck off you tosser’_ that rides up his tongue.

He pushes further into the cushions instead, dragging Louis’ feet and his sketchpad back into his lap. He snatches up a slice of cold pizza from the pulled apart box on the floor, greasy fingers curling back around his pencil and he spends the last half of the film adding meaningless details to the costume and breaking the point of the pencil on the _‘LP’_ he keeps scratching into a corner of the page.

 

//

 

The early dust of the morning flits up into the sky like embers from a wilderness fire, the sun lighting up the streets like flames. The sky is always little a crude blue around this hour, with the clouds a pinkish-yellow that remind him of carnival carousels and Sunday dresses. He always walks through the crowded streets, the traffic abuzz with too many cars and double-deckers, with one headphone in and lyrics inked to his lips. He keeps a steady pace with the sun on his back and a notebook under his arm, adjusting the strap of his shoulderbag whenever the weight shifts too much.

He walks corner to corner, through the haphazard traffic of barely moving cars, past the steady stretch of workers dressed in their finest suits and pencil skirts toward their favorite corner. He meets up with Louis every morning here, where the buses crowd by and people gather for the next cab toward an unhealthy addiction for money and franchise coffee.

Zayn grins through the fog and the blur of people when he spots Louis. He’s always there first, looking impatient with an expression that says _‘fuck all of you peasants’_ that Zayn falls in love with every chance he gets. He’s almost always clutching a coffee – he grimaces at the Starbucks logo and Louis convinces him otherwise about the benefits of corporate caffeine – and dressed in a dapper three-piece or shirt and tie combination. He as a thing for slick-back hair and a freshly shaven jaw and a pair of mirror Aviators he got for a tenner down at some market fair. Zayn thinks marketing corrupted Louis – the kid who was all striped shirts and braces and skintight colorful jeans with no socks when he met him – but Louis thinks it’s _matured_ him, even if Zayn’s certain Louis doesn’t know the definition of that term.

“Late again,” Louis sighs, lowering his sunglasses on the brim of his nose and pushing up the cuff of his shirt to look down at a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “Fifteen minutes, Malik. _Christ_.”

The corners of his mouth shift upward on their own accord and he slides through the hectic buzz of moving traffic, smirking widely as Louis shoves his coffee toward him like the scent is offending.

“Only fifteen? ‘m usually _thirty minutes_ late,” Zayn smiles, brushing Louis’ fingers while stealing away the coffee and circling spare fingers around Louis’ wrist. He tugs him away from the corner with a loose smirk, nudging their shoulders before adding, “I’m early today. Practically on time.”

“Practically my arse, Zee,” Louis grumbles but he’s only half-serious, chasing a smirk with a long sip of his own coffee. There’s a _‘Tommo’_ scrawled over the cardboard in cheap Sharpie and Zayn rolls his eyes at the shrug Louis gives him, as if he doesn’t own his own alter-ego in this pathetic definition of living.

Zayn tugs his varsity jacket closed because, even in the summer, this city is much cooler in the morning. He lets his chinos ride low on his hips and eyes the gray of Louis’ suit, the way the charcoal sharpens the brilliance of his perpetually ocean blue eyes. They’re opposites, on mostly everything, but they fit like two corner pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle.

“Come on Tommo,” Zayn begs with a smile, tongue pressed firmly to his teeth when Louis offers him a scowl instead of a returned grin. “You know I love me sleep.”

Louis rolls his eyes instantly but doesn’t tug away from the curl of Zayn’s fingers around his wrist or the way they walk shoulder to shoulder through the epic flow of commuters looking for a quicker way to their final destination.

Zayn sips at his coffee through the plastic lid, forgoing the straws Louis had slipped in it earlier. It burns on his tongue and fills his senses, his blood with the kind of relief the morning shower couldn’t provide.

“ _Perfect_. Bless you Tommo,” he grins out, squeezing his fingers over the pulse point under Louis’ skin.

Louis sheds a smile, the edges of his mouth pushing his cheeks dangerously high on his face. “I don’t know why I bother to pick up your coffee every morning.”

Zayn makes a face, knocking their shoulders and avoiding a street sign that attempts to divide them. He nudges Louis’ hip with his own before scalding his tongue and throat with more coffee.

“Because I buy you _two_ at lunch and listen to all of your sexual conquests,” Zayn offers, leading Louis left before right and around another corner toward a section of taller buildings with shiny windows and chrome frames.

“Wingman, Zaynie,” Louis cheers and Zayn cringes openly at the sound, “They call it being a wingman. Besides, don’t act like you don’t wank off to my healthy sex life.”

“I don’t.”

Louis hollows out a laugh with a sideways smirk that’s too broad for his face and too loud for this time of morning but Zayn ignores it in favor of the Kendrick Lamar filling one of his ears.

“Fucking bullshit,” Louis huffs out, swallowing down more coffee and the sun filters through the looser bits of his hair to create a halo around the crown of his head. His endless tanned skin is hidden beneath a freshly pressed button up with the collar undone and the sleeves of his suit jacket pull around his arms like a second skin. Zayn thinks, if he was into those types, Louis would be quite fit and worthy of a good handjob, maybe even getting on his knees for.

He winces at that because Louis’ too smug and too demanding to keep his fingers out of anyone’s hair or to be polite about such things and its _Louis_ , for fuck’s sake.

“Speaking of my dating life,” Louis says as an in-between but Zayn pulls a face instead of looking interested. Louis blindly waves him off, slurping at his coffee as a distraction while his eyes follow a pretty redhead down another corner of the streets. “Calder’s daughter is back in town from university for the summer. S’ppose I’ll be taking her for a roundabout around town before a few nights of splendid mattress fun. Reckon your mate Aiden can get us into that one spot across town? The club with the glow sticks or summat.”

Zayn smirks, knocking their elbows as they inch down another left turn. “It’s called _chemiluminescence_ , you idiot,” he laughs, his nose scrunching up when Louis balks at him, “and why bother? You don’t even like the bird.”

“You watch too many educated programs,” Louis grumbles, stealing his fingers between Zayn’s to avoid a massive collision of people moving in the opposite direction down their side of the street.

Zayn smiles around the lid of the cup.

Louis shrugs at him, curving the corner of his mouth into a half-smile. “Keeping up appearances, I reckon. Calder is rather high and mighty on the marketing food chain, mate.”

“You’re sick, bro,” Zayn chuckles, nudging him away with a crooked grin. “Completely fucked in the head.”

Louis smirks, wide and beautiful like a fallen angel. He hooks an arm with Zayn’s and they slip down another side street that’s less crowded, the storm drains letting the constant flow of morning dew flood the pavement in small river-like puddles.

“Fuck off, Zee,” Louis sneers, unfastening a few buttons on his jacket and pushing up his sunglasses. He tips his grin a little higher, kamikaze blue eyes tinted an early green that reminds Zayn of sea algae in the Pacific. A bubble gum pink tongue slides over cherry lips before Louis adds, “She’s a decent shag and I need an in-between’er after that mess with Michael.”

“Clifford?” Zayn wonders with an arched eyebrow, a curve to his lips. “The one with tie-dye hair from the coloring department?”

Louis snorts, a sheepish nod following. He lifts his chin a bit defiantly, cocky in its rawest state. “Sick blowjobs, dude. It’s the tongue ring.”

Zayn chokes on a small sip of coffee, wrinkling his nose at the bellow of Louis’ laughter. They remain arm-in-arm down the sunbathed streets, under the circus-colored sky. Something resembling happiness pumps through their veins, dopamine chasing their blood and their smiles stretch like electric currents. It soaks them through, this feeling of weightlessness that they carry through the streets, and anchor themselves to each other like land dividers in this valley of self-deprivation.

They tumble through the front doors of the building, an ominous sight and an architect’s wet dream with its silver and steel and hexagons layered over flat, ceiling-length windows that resemble an ocean of mirrors. It’s not nearly as impressive as the house that Marvel built in New York but it’s some sort of landmark in London and Zayn feels his nervous system swell with electric-bright synapses he can’t quite escape every time he looks upon it.

The lobby is littered with fresh-faced, wide-eyed savants disguised as interns, their blood running hot with adrenaline and Zayn remembers this feeling. He remembers the glow that fills their lungs like stardust, the dopey grins and the race your heart gets like waiting atop that first downward spiral of a rollercoaster. He can still taste the rush of too much caffeine that first day and the throb along your bones and the way everything is _shiny and new_.

They’re gathered in flocks and small groups, already forming little bonds over artistic indifference and shading techniques and academic studies. There’s talks of Marvel versus DC – _of course_ – and Star Wars over Star Trek, the flaws of the Green Lantern film and the meaningless violence of the Spawn film. It’s a parade of _‘the next Superman film will define our generation’_ over a thunder of _‘Selina Kyle is the definition of the perfect woman.’_ They’ve all got laminated identification hanging from around their necks with poorly taken photos and bold font with their names and a very distinct red border that signifies one thing –

“Fucking interns,” Louis groans into his ear and Zayn can recognize the pout on his lips without looking. “I swear they’re the Green Goblin to my Peter Parker.”

Zayn snorts, shaking his head. He grins at the way they bounce on their toes and share folders filled with their works and huddle together like ants on a mound. They’re far from intimidating, but they stink of lavender perfume and cheap body spray and half of them are dressed in button downs, expensive chinos, laced up Converse trainers like a bunch of – well, like University kids on their first day.

All of them are so anxious and he knows, from experience, that feeling is inescapable for the first few hours until they’re nothing more than another body to fetch a quick cup of caffeine just to watch, from ten meters away, some nameless artist sketching in a few panels of their favorite character with wickedly wide eyes and a trumpet-loud smile like this is where dreams begin.

“ _Fresh meat_ ,” Max calls out, some shaved-head ink guy from the fourth floor with his rogues – Nathan, Jay, and Tom – tailing and mimicking his round laugh.

“It’s a shame, really,” Tom puts in with his cheap smile and wandering eyes, shoving through a few of the groups like they own the lobby – _secondary school hierarchy_ , Zayn thinks with narrowed eyes.

“Most of you won’t even be fortunate enough to earn a job here,” Jay teases, shouldering past a collection of kids dressed in their favorite Marvel t-shirts – the usual lineup of Iron Man, the Hulk, Wolverine – before stealing someone’s coffee.

“Half of you lot won’t make it to the second week,” Max adds as they commandeer one of the lifts, their shameless laughter echoing through the glass lobby minutes after the doors shut.

“Major egos,” Zayn sighs, tipping his head toward Louis.

“Small dicks,” Louis finishes, grinning.

Zayn bites at a laugh, nudges Louis back with his shoulder though he knows Louis won’t scurry far. He flicks his eyes over the stuffed lobby – the young faces, thick glasses, art deco attire, bags stuffed with art supplies they’ll never use, the Bambi-eyed expression that’ll wear off in a day or two. He tries to pinpoint the ones that’ll last the week, the ones that have a chance of turning this opportunity into a career. He surveys a guy in one corner of the room, young like him with a smile sweet like candy and eyes wide like open fields who keeps staring at a too tall poster of Violator hanging from the wall. Zayn can almost pick out the color of his eyes and the shape of his hands that are halfway shoved into his chinos with a buzz cut for a hairstyle and a birthmark in the shape of a Rorschach painting on his neck.

There’s a gasp caught in his throat and a tremble through his fingers when the boy looks away from the poster, midway into the crowd and Zayn swears he’s looking _through_ him but that feeling is only half a second long before the boy looks away again.

“C’mon _loverboy_ ,” Louis teases in that singsong voice he only saves for cheap flirtation and too many drinks at a minibar. “I’m gonna be late for my morning meeting with the suits and you’re scaring the locals with your hair and smoldering looks, babe.”

Zayn swallows back a wounded sound, pushing his lukewarm coffee to his lips to hide the noise and the hesitation in his steps when he follows Louis towards the lift only last a few seconds. He fists Louis’ collar and ducks behind his wide shoulders before Leigh-Anne can lay eyes – or hands or lips or whatever other portion of her body – on him. There’s a breath between the ping of the elevator and the noise of some company suit gathering up all of the interns where Zayn thinks his heart beats a little too loud, drawing far too many eyes and the kind of attention Zayn’s spent his entire life avoiding.

 

//

 

“And what mysteries are we trying to uncover today, Boy Wonder?”

He’s halfway through a cover sketch with a ring of spilled coffee staining an earlier drawing and a pencil between his teeth, the wood worn with bite marks, when Perrie perches herself on the corner of his work space. She knocks a few colored pencils out of place, scooping up a Sharpie to tap on her bare knee and the smirk across her glossy pink lips reminds him of half-chewed bubble gum.

Zayn drags his fingers across the back of his head, blunt fingernails stroking impatiently over his scalp before he drags his eyes up to her mascara-thick eyelashes. Her eyes remind him of lit swimming pools at night and her hair is that shock of fluorescent blonde with stark shades of neon magenta that’s both distracting and completely unnecessary. Her cheeks raise higher with her grin, mischievous in ways Louis is not, and she crosses her legs like a taunt rather than something sparsely coy.

“Bored?” he wonders but it’s not really a question.

Perrie sighs sweetly, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Not really. Just wanted to know what it was like to work on the _second_ best-selling comic for the company.”

Zayn lowers his eyes again, trying to find the right angle to map out the foreground of his artwork.

“Not much to brag about when you draw for a copycat _Transformers_ book, yeah?” Zayn huffs. He catches the tip of his tongue with his teeth while trying to balance out the shading on Violator’s costume, the way it stretches over his muscles.

“We’re the highest selling book, Zayn, you know – “

Zayn sighs, quirking an eyebrow before lifting his eyes. Her pout is almost believable.

“You lot are only doing good ‘cause of, like, the success of _Pacific Rim_ or summat. Not based on _talent_ ,” he counters, his teeth clipping the edge of his bottom lip when she groans.

“Rubbish,” Perrie whines, almost knocking over his half-finished cup of secondhand coffee when she shifts on his desk. “Violator is nothing more than a cheap Dr. Twilight.”

Zayn grins, the edge of his mouth wrinkling his nose and shoving at his cheeks. “Dr. _Mid-Nite_ , love,” he corrects, tapping the eraser end of his pencil along the free spaces of his page.

“Whatever,” Perrie groans, waving him off instantly. Something like intrigue spills into her expression, careening mischief into her cells as she leans closer, chin on her knuckles with an arm propped on her knee. “Just admit it, gorgeous – you wish you were drawing for the best-selling comic this company has ever seen, right? I mean, face it babe – Violator blows more than your little mate Tommo from the fifth floor.”

There’s a wicked rhythm in her giggle, the flight of her lashes against her cheeks and the twist of that provoking smirk that’s slick by too much gloss. She creases her lips with white teeth, the piercing in her nose shifted by the wrinkle of her mouth and her eyes are solar flares of blue saturation.

Zayn snorts, drawing back from her teasing fingers across the back of his hand and the rush of her toxic perfume – something like a field of sunflowers and acidic strawberries.

“Drawing massive alien robots who fight plantlike lizards must be loads of fun, innit?” Zayn says, smirking at the scowl she offers him.

“Fuck off Malik,” she spits, flicking at the highest points of his quiff before stomping off. She throws a look over her shoulder – deliberate and resounding – before she coos, “One day, babe, you’ll wish my little comic about robots didn’t kick your pathetic hero’s arse right out on the streets.”

He ignores the gauntlet of air kisses and counterfeit winks she offers to drag a sharp-edged Sharpie over the lines he wants the color department to darken. He finishes the stale coffee and looks over a few editor’s notes before the open brick hallway that leads into the art department – because the company hired some post-grad kid to design the structure of this place to look _‘cooler’_ by definition when Violator shot to number one and they were moving profit half the size of Marvel’s – echoes with an all too familiar voice and a parade of interns follows a sharply dyed blonde boy into their workspace.

Zayn spins on his easy chair, leans back with a quirked up grin. Niall is something like the start of spring – everything about his smile is fresh and the irremovable blush to his cheeks is like early blooming flowers. His eyes are that silvery blue like mid-April showers and his laugh reminds Zayn of the thunderstorms in May and his skin is the neat shade of pale like the thistle in his mum’s garden back in Bradford.

“And this floor is for all you lot who are studying graphic design or fine arts or whatever the fuck universities offer these days,” Niall says with a wide grin, arms stretched out like he’s giving a full tour rather than standing in the archway of the room.

His blonde hair is gelled up into some half-done style with wax and the dark roots stand out sparsely against the platinum. His cheeks are that fair tint of red like maraschino cherries and his button up is stained by coffee, like it _always_ is any time past nine in the morning. His tie is undone, hanging loosely and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up messily, like they were the first time Louis introduced him to Zayn on a Tuesday afternoon, up on the roof between cigarettes and more coffee. He wears that’s same smile – nothing smug like Louis but commanding in a charming way that no one will really understand. It’s the kind of grin you wear during a good high or after a proper drunken fuck, the kind of blissful thing made for photographs or movie stills.

“Now don’t get too comfortable,” Niall declares, moving further into the room with hands on his hips and just an inch of superiority because Niall is in editing – a luck job he got because his dad put in a few years in the storyboard department before moving back to Mullingar – and while he’s nothing like the bunch of arseholes who give the art guys shit for the hell of it, Niall knows he can still play that card if he wants to. “This is not a palace for the lazy.”

There’s a few muted chuckles and Zayn buries his own smile into the sleeve of his t-shirt, teeth nipping at spare ink on his forearm as Niall rounds his desk.

Niall claps a hand on Zayn’s shoulder, grinning down at him before straightening up like a drill sergeant at the command. “These fine gents and ladies put in a hard days, and sometimes, night’s work all of the time. They say ‘ _when you live in art_ – “

Zayn clears his throat, something throbbing staining his cheeks a pliant pink before he finishes, “ – _you die in misery._ ’”

The burst of laughter that follows paints his expression crimson, Niall’s fingers squeezing into his shoulder. Something warm and riotous like an open fire spreads across his chest and he hasn’t wanted to hide in his work more than now with a dozen eyes set on him, each trying to figure him out with calculated looks.

“Or on the editing room floor as many of our past artists have,” Niall contends, still grinning with that mountainous pride in his appearance and his chest puffed out like a stuffy VIP. “But not this lad here – “

Zayn squeaks at the suggestion, shoulders shivering upward and he’s ducking his head from the sheer embarrassment. He’s hiding his trembling smile behind his knuckles, teeth tugging at the skin on the back of his hand before Niall shakes him for the fuck of it.

“This here is the one and only Zayn Malik,” Niall announces and the coos that follow tremble up Zayn’s spine like seducing fingers. “Yes, you lucky bunch of rejects, _the Zayn Malik_. One of the prominent artists of our _Violator_ series and Stan Lee’s arch-nemesis.”

Zayn ducks his head and his teeth cinch his lip as he tries to shrug Niall away. “Shut it, you idiot.”

“’cuse my mate here, he’s always been kind of bashful,” Niall hums, calloused fingers pinching as much of the thread of skin from Zayn’s cheek they can grasp. Zayn elbows him and Niall shakes his shoulders before adding, “You’ve always been my favorite, dude.”

Zayn laughs, low and unintended but he can’t help himself with Niall. “Don’t let Lou hear you say that.”

Niall grins over his shoulder and they’ve forgotten the ten sets of eyes on them so quickly until the weight becomes too heavy and Zayn wants to hide behind Niall’s pale skin and cherry cheeks and lopsided smile like he’s half-drunk on life – and Zayn thinks he sort of is, always has been.

“Right, back to you lot,” Niall beams, the corners of his mouth crooked and his teeth are perfectly white – far from that goofy look he used to carry a year ago with braces and a certain kind of shyness Zayn misses.

“Which one of ye unlucky ones has Mr. Malik as their mentor?” he asks, standing on the tips of his high-top Jordan’s – because Niall is always professional in his attire, like Louis, except when it comes to his footwear.

Zayn waits a whole unanticipated beat, teeth gnawing his lip nearly raw and fingers moving reflexively over his thighs before the small crowd parts just a little for someone fumbling through. That whole beat – with its nuanced breathing and uninterested looks and daydreaming – catches on the shell of his lungs and he sinks a little too deep into his lip when _he_ – _Liam_ , that’s his name, right? – moves to the forefront and –

And his heart doesn’t skip a beat and his breathing doesn’t go short and his palms don’t ache with sweat when this boy with crinkles around his eyes from smiling too hard and a buzz cut and something sweet swept across his jaw representing stubble trips forward. His chest doesn’t sink in and his blood doesn’t run feverish through his veins off the raw honey shade of his skin or those cheeks, so laughable with their visible texture. This kid with his clean Converse and saggy jeans and button-up shirt, sleeves done up lazily to expose sinewy muscles moving like ocean waves beneath his skin. No, he doesn’t _stare_ at him because he’s nothing but ordinary.

Except he’s not.

He’s sandstone brown eyes, something like the shade of Brazilian coffee beans. He’s got a loose smile shoving up his cheeks, lips the color of a Bali sunrise. He’s caught the tension of the earth in his bones, the flex of his muscles when he stretches his hand out for a greeting. His eyebrows are uneven, fuzzy and his nose is round and there’s a spot of syrupy brown representing a birthmark on his neck. There’s some silly yellow, rubber Batman bracelet around his wrist and a choked choral voice hidden beneath his clearing throat.

Zayn thinks he’s so _plain_ but he’s honestly not. He’s a catalyst, the kind of kid Zayn would fuck and leave tiny bruises across his hips and trash his number after a post-morning blowjob, pretending he’ll remember the boy’s Twitter handle later on.

“I’m Liam,” he says with a choked voice, squeezed tightly by his nervous laugh and Zayn doesn’t ever want to remember the weight of the shiver on his skin at that sound again.

He snorts, lips moving up accordingly and crookedly on their own. Their handshake is loose and the grip isn’t tight enough around Zayn’s fingers but he settles for the way Liam holds on just a little too long like he’s in awe of Zayn’s presence.

“Zayn,” he huffs, dragging his fingers back and Liam’s tickle across his palm, sneak another tremble around Zayn’s spine.

“Brilliant,” Niall grins, stitching blush into Zayn’s cheeks with a wink. He claps Zayn’s shoulders once more before adding, “Treat him well, yeah Zayner? Our young Liam Payne here just got into the University of the Arts London – “

“I’m from Wolverhampton and my favorite character is Batman, the Bruce Wayne version of course,” Liam adds, his smile tipping higher and his eyes neatly moving into small slits. “And my favorite writer is Geoff Johns, though I fancy Jeph Loeb’s earlier works.”

There’s a quiet hum of laughter behind him, an echo of _‘geek’_ and _‘is this dude serious’_ that shatters Liam’s cheeks a promising pink and it reaches down his neck, to that small view of his collarbone that’s exposed by carelessly undone buttons on his shirt. He drags his foot shyly across the ground, looking away and Zayn hiccups into a breath because this kid’s profile is soft and hard, experimentally tragic in the way it breathes youth across his expression –

Zayn never studied art at school or attended university but he’s read enough pieces about Van Gough and the _post-Impressionism_ to know the definition of ‘ _rough beauty’_ and _‘bold colors’_ just by the hint of the sun stroking Liam’s cheek under these harsh fluorescent lights.

“Right,” Niall says, dragging out each letter until Liam lifts his chin with a grin. He fumbles a hand onto Liam’s shoulder, squeezing meekly as if not to scare him before attaching, “Our boy Malik here will teach you a many of things. Including where to find the best coffee and why he seems to think the Hulk would crush Darkseid in a one on one fight.”

“He _would_ ,” Zayn whispers, a smirk tickling at his twitching lips.

“Dude,” Niall laughs, pulling away and the tickle of his fingers dragging over the nape of Zayn’s neck is brilliant, “I don’t even know the difference between Bruce Banner and Bruce Wayne – “

“Gamma radiation,” Zayn sneaks in and he doesn’t miss the _‘why do we fall’_ that slips past Liam’s pliant lips. He lifts his eyebrows at the cautious grin Liam presents and sharing smiles feels so elementary but it tramples his heart, leaves a chaotic symphony in his head.

Zayn bites on his lip, picks at loose threads on his chinos and anchors his thoughts to his unfinished work once Niall leads the other interns away. He can smell Liam’s boyish cologne – some cheap scent your mum gets you on Christmas – and he can feel the way this boy is vibrating with unused energy and it’s so fucking disturbing how he’s intrigued by the flutter of blonde lashes rather than how Violator is going to disarm a bomb on the next undone panel.

“I guess,” Zayn says, teeth pinching the tip of his tongue as he waves a hand around his work area. He pauses, his nose wrinkling at Liam’s twisted smile, the raise of his brow. “Just pull up a stool, y’know. Pull up and you can watch for a little while and I’ll kind of – “

He sighs because he’s an idiot. He’s a complete disaster at this and what douche decided he was good enough to teach someone else about drawing? He still thinks half of his own works are shit and he hasn’t perfected drawing faces straight on and most of what he has learned from art has come from watching others on YouTube. Instead, he works nervous fingers across the back of his neck and waits until Liam shyly pulls a chair up next to him, sitting and knocking their knees and Zayn’s not suffocating.

He’s breathing against the tide.

 

//

 

Liam watches him, mostly quiet, for the first hour. He grins at all of Zayn’s messed up lines and endless erasing, leaning in to watch Zayn ink in bits of Violator’s costume and Zayn hates the way Liam’s breathing tickles the side of his neck like –

No, he is not one of those boyish blokes who falls for anyone at first sight. He likes _personality_ and _intellect_ and _words_ , fuck, why doesn’t this boy use his words?

“I’ve always been a bit of a fan,” Liam says between Zayn sipping at cold, dense coffee and switching pencils. There’s a reserved smile on his lips – still so full and _remarkable_ feels like a word that would drift over Zayn’s tongue if he had to describe this look on Liam’s face – and Liam leans back like he’s too close.

Zayn hums, slanting an eyebrow. He focuses on the background scenery and the curve of Violator’s jaw rather than the contrast between Liam’s eyes and his lashes.

“Of your stuff, I mean,” Liam says a little lower, a hand cupping the nape of his neck like a five year old. He eyes drop away, hydrated slashes of pink on his cheeks and Zayn drags his pencil on a corner of the paper, scribbling out his name.

“What for?” Zayn asks a little too roughly because Liam blinks hard at him with white teeth pulling at a bottom lip.

“You’re really good and – “

“I’m no Jim Lee,” Zayn sighs, penciling in a few details to Violator’s arms and stubble on his exposed jaw.

Liam’s knee knocks his under the desk and there’s an automatic smile across those lips and Zayn looks away immediately at the haze of _‘you’re brilliant’_ in Liam’s eyes because this kid doesn’t know shit.

He doesn’t know the hours Zayn practices until his fingers cramp and his wrist feels worn and his hands are covered in smudged grey. He doesn’t know the dozens and dozens of comics, films Zayn’s studied just to master the ratio of shoulders to torso and the subtle hints that can be scripted into a smile on paper. And it’s not that Zayn’s hostile with his hardened expression but he feels helpless when Liam grins wider and soft knuckles graze the inside of Zayn’s wrist – right along the splash of ink from his tattoo – to steal an ink pen.

“We’re our own worst critics,” Liam says, the words coasting on an eased breath with a contradicting smirk like he’s got a secret. “Me mummy always says stuff like that.”

Zayn leans back, away from Liam’s unintended touch. He studies the way Liam adds purposeful shadows to his earlier drawings and he’s got an awful technique but it’s so _human_. It reminds Zayn of younger days, in a coffee shop with a Sharpie and a shoulderbag full of Keats and Socrates.

He almost asks _are you human_ but the words die on the roof of his mouth when Liam chuckles, looks away with the kind of wonder reserved for sixteen year olds and dreams of adulthood. He nearly wrecks his hair with clumsy fingers instead and winces at the cold coffee on his tongue until he can stop staring at the way Liam bites his tongue while inking, looks ridiculous with uncoordinated fingers and the stretch of his neck, the tendons beneath, are the worst kind of distractions.

“Whose idea is it to ruin every one of my summers with this _mentor-mentee_ bullshit?” Louis wails, stumbling through the room with an undone jacket and wide blue eyes that Zayn grins at.

He finds a corner of Zayn’s desk to sit on, the one furthest from Liam and he steals an Oreo from the near-finished pack at the opposite corner before crossing his legs at the ankle and sighing loudly. He twists off the top half, feeds it to Zayn in a teasing manner because he knows Zayn’s addicted to the cream, not the cookie, and eyes Liam a little warily before turning toward Zayn.

Zayn tilts his head to the side, pushing his smile a little higher before muttering, “Not what you expected?”

Louis widens his eyes dramatically – because he _can’t_ be anything other than that – and huffs out another sigh. “He’s not some old tosser who needs to get a nut off on dreams of meeting Stan Lee,” Louis explains with an exaggerated tongue and crinkled eyebrows. “I’m stuck with some twat who is _devastatingly beautiful_ and he came in with a list of marketing ideas, commercial plots, and an eco-friendly cup of herbal tea. What kind of idiot drinks herbal tea?”

Zayn presses a laugh into his shoulder, watches Louis lick away the cream like an adolescent and inspects the way Louis studies Liam.

“New guy?” Louis asks Zayn even though he’s eyeing Liam, a poor attempt at a whisper with a mouthful of cookie.

“Liam Payne, sir,” Liam says quickly, reaching across Zayn to offer a hand and Louis glares at it like it’s offensive.

“Did he call me _sir_?” Louis inquires with a strangled voice and Zayn slouches into his chair, nodding.

“I’m sorry, it’s just my mum always said – “

Louis waves around a dismissive hand and swats away Liam’s hand. He readjusts the sleeves of his jacket and puckers up his lips into a grin before saying, “Not necessary, dude. I give everyone shit around here. Even the bosses.”

Liam nods slowly like he’s calculating it all and Zayn bites sharply on his lips to reject the smile urging its way across his mouth. He flicks at Louis knee when he stares for too long, biting at his knuckles rather than his lip for a second as Liam trade looks between them.

“Good to see some new faces in this department. Half of this lot should retire and the other ones just aren’t as cool as Zayn,” Louis says a little too loudly but he ignores the looks he gets from around the room to smirk pleasantly at Zayn, a polite middle finger to any and every one with a gesture of his lips.

“Oh, I’m – “

Liam rearranges himself to straighten up in his chair and Louis’ eyes go a little too wide when his shirt shifts to expose his name badge.

“ _Oh_ ,” Louis gasps, coiling backwards. His lips slide a slow descent and his shoulders tighten. “You’re a _redtag_.”

Liam fixes his eyebrows into an unfortunate wrinkle and Zayn sighs against his knuckles, the sound low under Louis’ chuckle.

“What’s a redtag?” Liam asks.

Zayn looks at the ground rather than Liam’s puzzled face, scuffs his boots on the floor and examines the remnants of pencil lead over the back of his hand while Louis chokes on a tight laugh.

“Just a name me and a bunch of the boys came up for you interns,” Louis says offhandedly and it’s not meant to be offensive but Zayn doesn’t think Louis knows the difference anyway. “You’ll get used to it.”

Liam nods again, a bit abashed and he scoops up a few coloring pencils instead of responding. Zayn jabs his knuckles on Louis’ knee, a small admonishment and they trade hateful glares that mean nothing because, really, was Zayn standing up for this boy?

This boy with eyes rich in earth tones and he’s just a couple of months younger than Zayn, bigger in build and more refined with decency and he’s far from some proverbial damsel in need of rescuing.

He recognizes the playful smile on Louis’ lips and draws his chair back from the desk, pushing up and coiling fingers around Louis’ wrist as a distraction to the things they’re not saying aloud. Louis sighs, edging off the desk and Liam looks up with wonder, panning his looks between them like a lost puppy. It’s endearing and sickening and Zayn’s certain this world, this city will swallow Liam alive before the summer ever ends.

“Cigarette break,” Zayn says when Liam’s lips part for words, jerking his head in the direction of the hallway and the lift. He bites at a corner of his lip, feels Louis’ smug smile in the indent of his collarbone before adding, “You can take a look around the offices. Check out the vending machines. There’s back issues on the second floor, too. Just, y’know, don’t muck anything up.”

He turns before Liam can nod or respond and drags Louis away, grimacing at Louis’ loud laugh and the burn across his own cheeks and the _‘much like suffocating’_ Louis sings lowly like he can see right through Zayn.

He hopes Liam doesn’t share that same super power but that’s stupid and the smallest of Zayn’s concerns right now.

 

//

 

During his first few months here, he and Louis raided a few abandoned offices on the sixth floor and stole a couch from the fourth floor lobby. They stumbled it up four floors of stairs that left Zayn breathless and Louis hating his abandoned exercise routine he took up for post-season football training. Zayn pleaded for a cigarette two floors in and Louis foolishly reenacted the _‘pivot’_ scene from that one episode of _Friends_ Zayn loves and they made it to the roof in two hours with brows slick with sweat and Zayn hating any idea Louis’ ever come up with.

The couch has remained on the roof since, smelling of four different seasons with sunken in cushions, patchwork covering and box springs sticking out. It’s got burns on the sleeve of the arm from shared cigarettes and a used copy of _Catcher in the Rye_ that Louis started up between the cushions. There’s crushed empty cups from coffee they exchanged and a permanent indentation from Louis always wedging himself between the middle portions and Zayn loves that this is where they go to think and escape every little piece of London, under an epic sky and a decent view of the city.

“Is this how you pictured life?” Louis wonders and Zayn smiles instantly because it’s how they start up every one of their conversations up here.

Zayn’s got a cigarette between his lips, a hand cupping the flame from his zippo and Louis’ head in his lap. He fiddles with the spark, takes a long drag and exhales the smoke into the fog of already greying skies. His fingers get sticky in the gel in Louis’ hair and Louis’ curled up like a six year old, wrinkling his suit and his shoes were discarded by the emergency exit door a few paces back.

“Missing home again?” Zayn asks even though he doesn’t have to because Louis’ got his younger sisters as the lock screen on his phone and has already booked a ticket for Doncaster in September, but it feels appropriate.

Louis half-shrugs, steals the cigarette after Zayn’s second puff and perches it loosely between his own lips.

“My mum always thought I’d be a teacher and marry a bird back home, have kids,” Louis puts in, breathing the words out with the loose rings of smoke from his lips. “Sometimes I think I could still do that.”

Zayn nods, watching the floating clouds and the waves of birds chasing the wind. He tips his head back, blindly reaching for the cigarette and inhales the nicotine until his senses are flooded and drowned.

“What about you?”

Zayn quirks an eyebrow, borrows Louis’ shiny Aviators to block out the sun. “Kids? Maybe. Back home? Not really.”

“And a wife?” Louis chuckles, pinching Zayn’s thigh.

“You never know,” Zayn laughs back, shuffling a few fingers through Louis’ stiff hair. “I mean – “

“Are you over her?” Louis asks between the smoke and turns his head in Zayn’s lap.

Zayn looks down, hiding his eyes behind the lenses and the worry caught in his jaw almost gives him away.

“It was a stupid romance, you know that Lou,” Zayn responds but it’s a poor attempt at an answer that Zayn’s practiced a million times in the mirror. “It was a couple of months.”

“Dude, it was nearly a _year_ and you practically inked her fucking face on your arm,” Louis argues, his voice coiled around concern rather than defensiveness.

Zayn snorts, sucking in another breath of smoke before passing the cigarette back to Louis. He tips his head away to exhale, tries to lose himself in the lazy azure color of the sky and the blanket of the orangey sun and the haze of charcoal in the background.

“It’s over, Lou,” he sighs, teeth dragging on his lip. “We’re friends or summat. She’s doing well and I’m fine and – “

“And you don’t still love her because you’re in love with cock, right?” Louis teases and Zayn knows it’s meant as a distraction.

His lips curve into a smile, fingers scratching at Louis’ scalp. “Exactly.”

“Perfect,” Louis hums, his eyes so alive even when they squint at the taste of smoke on his tongue, the way he always looks when he smokes because it’s such an intermediate habit for him. “Because I still hate her and you’re the kind of mate that would fall in love with one of those Pepper Potts kind of dudes. You know, an unexpected challenge.”

“I’m no Tony Stark,” Zayn argues kindly, wasting away in his own smile and the bluish smoke seeping into his lungs.

“No, you’re not,” Louis grins, turning away again to pick at the worn fabric on Zayn’s knees. “But you’re pretty fucking ace.”

“Idiot,” Zayn laughs out but his chest burns with affection, hotter than the tinny smoke down his ribs. He feels Louis smile against his thigh, slouching further down the couch to let the sun warm his face.

“I’d never leave you, you know,” Louis adds, quietly and it’s almost unnoticeable under the roar of the traffic below them. “I’d drag you with me and you’d have to fall in love with some small town boy that I approve of while I finish off university and die a slow death of marketing shares and numbers.”

Zayn smiles unconsciously, burying his fingers further into Louis’ hair and he refuses to disagree.

“You could be my Jason Todd,” Louis beams, rolling onto his back and nearly knocking the cigarette from between Zayn’s casual fingers.

“You know he dies, right?” Zayn wonders, tilting his head to admire Louis’ smirk and the life in his electric eyes.

Louis nods, chases his laughter with another pull from the cigarette before passing it back to Zayn. “But he comes back and kicks so much arse,” he notes, nudging his shoulder to Zayn’s stomach and Zayn can’t bury his laughter in the streamline sounds of London.

“I’ve trained you well young Luke Skywalker,” Zayn teases, fixing Louis’ hair back into place.

“Dude,” Louis groans, wiggling his toes into the cushions and knocking his knuckles against Zayn’s elbow. “Please don’t quote your _Doctor Who_ bullshit to me.”

Zayn chokes on a giggle, finishes the cigarette before stubbing it out in an unmarked portion of the couch, branding it like he always does, and throws his head back to soak in a few more minutes of sun rays and cool summer exhales.

 

//

 

There’s a small cafeteria, just left of the lobby on the ground floor, that Zayn doesn’t really frequent but stops by occasionally for a moment of clarity in the corner with old issues of _the Avengers_ and a cornucopia of _All Star Comics_ with a shit cup of coffee. It’s a bit deceiving, the way all of the tables are lined up and everything is splashed in color like old Sunday comic strips because it should be a common ground for various departments to mingle but mostly everyone sticks to their own group – the artists, the suits, the writers fly solo as to not get distracted by each other’s works, the administrative staff. There’s casual flirting and endless gossip and Zayn mutes all of it with his feet kicked up on a plastic chair, a comic in his lap, and one of those too sweet desserts they offer on a paper plate with cling wrap around it.

He thinks, almost absently, that routines have never really been his strength when his attention is stolen by a shy throat clearing and a foot kicking an unused chair.

Zayn looks up, trying to school the annoyance in his expression when Liam looks down at him with a hand cupping his neck and a tray of food in his spare hand and that unconsciously nervous look in his eyes. He tries not to define that look as _hero worship_ or something trivial but Liam’s smile is kind of crooked and his eyes birth the kind of admiration Zayn runs from and he’s tipping from foot to foot anxiously. It leaves Zayn licking his lips and eyeing the empty chair across from him like a _‘no, you can’t’_ but he uses a foot to shove it out anyway, nodding toward it as an invitation.

“This isn’t secondary school, y’know,” he mumbles, arching an eyebrow at Liam’s obvious hesitance.

Something loosens in Liam’s bones and he nods at Zayn. He slides into the chair quickly, grinning wider and he’s got a lime Gatorade and streaming pasta, a small bowl of salad, a protein bar and the kid doesn’t look _starved_ but Zayn’s certain this choice in diet is what keeps Liam this fit –

Not that he’s noticed the tone of his arms beneath the sleeves of his Oxford or the stretch of his jeans around those thighs or the muscles in his back when he’s bent over the desk, sketching little doodles on crumpled up drawings Zayn’s discarded.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you, it’s just that I really don’t know anyone here and,” Liam swallows like the words are too heavy, an ocean of knit together letters he can’t tame. His jaw twitches and his tongue flicks over his lips to dismiss nerves before he squares his shoulders, sitting up straighter. “This is okay?”

Zayn nods instead of shaking his head, kicks his feet back up in that empty chair. He motions with his head to a corner of the room where a group of people are huddled together.

“There’s a bunch of mates from your intern group, you know,” he says informally, raising his brow at the smudge of crimson down Liam’s cheeks.

Liam shrugs and Zayn steals the apple off of his tray because he can.

“I feel so un-normal with them,” Liam sighs, ducking his head some.

“No,” Zayn says instinctively, leaning back in his chair and propping his comic on his knees. “The word is _abnormal_ , dude.”

Liam squeaks an embarrassingly sweet noise that Zayn smirks at, dropping his eyes to the dialogue between Thor and Loki rather than the push of Liam’s cheeks when he smiles. Still, he thinks it’ll be hard to forget that dopey look later on, when he’s home and letting his thoughts meander in the space between the floors.

“I just don’t,” Liam swallows again like the words are too big, enormous in his throat before shyly smiling, “I don’t think they get me or something. They’re so smart and they’ve studied real hard to get into school. I was just lucky and mostly got in for stuff I stayed up all night working on. ‘m not that good, not like you, and people back home mostly know me for rugby but I didn’t want to study sports medicine, much to my father’s regret.”

Zayn blinks at him, awed in transient ways he’ll never piece together and bites into the skin of the apple rather than uttering _‘you are a wonder amongst rogue characters Mr. Payne’_ because his throat grips the words and his lungs can’t expand that far.

Liam laughs, still strangled by a pausing embarrassment and fiddles with his mockery of Italian bread, pulling away the crust. His fingers come back greasy and his lips shiny but they’re still so pink that Zayn loses his grip on the conversation.

“I’m not that good, dude,” Zayn assures him, diverting his eyes but the press on his spine is a subtle reminder. “I just like, you know, trying to emulate my idols.”

Liam tips his head sideways with a grin that’s teasing and sugary and Zayn scrunches his face at it.

“Fuck off, mate, you’re bloody ace. Like, incredible? Yeah, really amazing,” Liam laughs, shoving messy fingers that stain Zayn’s wrist glittery with oil, slicking the ink of his tattoo. “Amazing like Peter Parker.”

It’s cheesy, like Zayn imagines this boy always is, but he can’t help the bubble of laughter that escapes his throat. He thumbs over to the next page of his comic and looks down to shadow bits of blush aching on his cheeks.

“I’m not very good at this because, like, I haven’t had any formal training,” Zayn admits, wants to take the words back when he lifts his eyes and Liam’s widen with surprise.

Something malleable and sincere strips away the shock from Liam’s expression, his fingers drumming on the table to the music overhead – _you set me on, you set me on, you set me on fire_ – and his smirk deepens.

“It’s all good because I’ve never done anything like this anyway,” Liam says and, for two and a half seconds, Zayn wonders if they’re even talking about the same thing –

And for the other eight seconds that silence weeps between them, he wonders why his heart picks up at the crinkle of Liam’s eyes or the scrunch in his nose or that out of control laughter that falls past Liam’s lips midway through Zayn’s next inhale.

“You can be like Captain America in _the Avengers_ ,” Liam adds, still lost in giggles and mouthfuls of pasta. “He wasn’t really sure how to lead them but he did.”

“Iron Man was the leader,” Zayn says lowly and he grips a tremble in the pit of his stomach when Liam whispers, _‘I know, trust me, dude.’_

They share a stifled laugh and Zayn chews into the apple while Liam swallows a healthy amount of Gatorade. He ditches that childhood wonder in his eyes and steals one of Zayn’s comics – a copy of _Witchblade_ with a loose grin on his lips, eyelashes kissing his cheeks while he fingers through the first few pages – and they trade off stories about home, their favorite characters, and Liam’s best efforts to explain the stylized differences between Burton and Nolan’s Batman. He swallows his coffee while Liam chews and he pretends Liam’s not interesting, just another face he won’t remember in a few months.

But that doesn’t work because Liam’s got a nice voice and he sings along to Coldplay like he wrote the melody and he giggles nervously when Zayn stares a little too long, stretching his neck and exposing his birthmark. He quotes Christian Bale and Zayn recites a few details from the new Captain America trailer until he doesn’t even notice Liam leaning closer just to listen, to offer up all of his attention like a student absorbing the methodology of his professor.

He almost misses when a spare chair is kicked over to their table and a boy with wide, wide jade eyes and a bounty of curls and the kind of charming smile that weakens Zayn’s knees and drags down his zipper on drunken nights sits next to Liam. He’s got one dimple instead of two and long fingers that pass Liam a can of Coke and a plate full of steamed vegetables, a parade of mixed fruit in a bowl.

“You look like a fun group,” he says by way of introduction, leaning back in his chair with white teeth and he looks too young to be here but he’s got a red name badge and a halfway undone shirt that shows off lethal ink and strong collarbones.

“I’m Harry, by the way,” he adds, forking away some of Liam’s salad and the necklaces he wears clink together as he reaches across the table to rob Zayn of an _Uncanny X-Men_ comic. “I’m in marketing and isn’t London great? Nothing like back home, dudes. It’s just… well, it’s _amazing_.”

Liam fumbles through a laugh and Zayn narrows his eyes at Harry like an intruder, not an escape from this train wreck of confusion that keeps muddling his thoughts about Liam.

“And you’re Liam, right? You were in my group during orientation,” Harry notes, grinning unsystematically at Liam before turning toward Zayn. “And _you_?”

“That’s Zayn,” Liam says before Zayn can flip this kid off, nudges Zayn’s chair under the table to settle the scowl on his face. “He’s an artist here. Pretty wicked stuff.”

“Never heard of you,” Harry shrugs and punching this insanely gorgeous boy crosses Zayn’s mind six times before Liam giggles under his breath, hiding his smirk in the open collar of his shirt. Harry grins, cheeks spread and eyebrows lifted before admitting, “Then again, I’ve never heard of a lot of people. I got into marketing as a way to please my mum even though I’m really into music. Like grunge rock and sound mixing and Mick Jagger stuff.”

“Then why are you _here_?” Zayn asks, words embedded in a hiss, even after Liam pokes a finger into his shoulder.

Harry lifts his shoulders carelessly, taking a sip from a recycled cup of tea. Zayn wrinkles his nose at the scent of chai and the peace sign necklace around Harry’s neck is so distinct against his creamy skin.

“I don’t mind the field, really. It’s kind of interesting, the way it all works. Plus it makes my stepdad forget that I’m sort of this hipster who’s a vegetarian and likes earthy tea and wants world peace,” Harry admits without a breath between words and Zayn’s jaw goes slack at the way he’s so nonchalant about everything.

“Interesting,” Liam hums, chasing Gatorade with Coke and bites of pasta. He chews at his bottom lip and drags messy fingers through his buzzed hair and it’s such a distraction, involuntarily but still.

“Plus this place is sort of great,” Harry tacks on while Zayn lowers his eyes to his comic, turning pages and missing half of a sequence when Harry adds, “I like the vibe around here. The guy I’m studying under is rather brilliant even if he _tries_ to be a dick. I think it’s natural for him.”

Liam chokes on a laugh, an aborted sound that sticks to the pit of Zayn’s stomach. He furrows his brow and studies the detail of Thor’s cape, sketching his fingers over the shape of Loki’s face for memory while Harry and Liam chat about trivial things that Zayn will barely remember in an hour. He ignores their laughter or the way Liam’s face scrunches up with interest and the way they’re whispering to each other like lifelong friends meeting up again. Harry shows off all of his tattoos beneath the sleeves and they have no real meaning, but Liam touches every one of them and Zayn doesn’t quite understand that pinch of something awful beneath his own skin like –

Jealously is insanely _cliché_ and atypical and nothing Zayn has ever been with a complete stranger.

Instead, Zayn studies Liam’s profile when he turns toward Harry to share stories about school and course studies and Liam educates Harry on the history of the X-Men, chronologically with a blistering grin. His fingers sketch out invisible lines on the table, the harsh lines of Liam’s square jaw and his stubble and the sound curve of his chin, the loose lips that could unsettle Zayn’s bones when pressed anywhere against his skin.

He grinds his teeth and looks down when Liam diverts his eyes from Harry and _this_ isn’t _secondary school_ he tells himself but that doesn’t stop him from blinking at the tiled floor rather than the brown eyes set on him.

He needs a good fuck and a sick blowjob and come staining his cold sheets; not this small town boy.

Louis’ gasp and his hip knocking against the table shakes Zayn from his thoughts and he looks up quickly to meet Louis’ scowl.

“Are you quite fucking _mad_ , Malik?” Louis asks, his voice a thin line between a doctored hiss and a sneer.

Zayn shrugs, sipping at shit coffee and picking at the leftover skin of his apple.

“And you’re eating a fucking apple? What are we in reception or summat?” Louis tags on, huffing out a breath and kicking at the chair Zayn’s lazily resting his feet in.

“Louis,” Harry sings out a bit drunkenly with that peppermint-bright grin and flickering eyes.

Louis pulls a face and Liam leans in to Zayn with a laugh, trying to guard the sound in the palm of his hand but it echoes and Zayn unconsciously steals a few fingers across Liam’s shoulder to settle him, smiling helplessly.

“I thought you didn’t do lunch, Lou,” Harry chimes, resting his chin on his knuckles and that smirk on his lips widens, stretching a cherry mouth and falsifying a dimple into his cheek.

It’s almost unnatural how Zen this kid is and Zayn scrunches his eyebrows at the pinched look upon Louis’ face.

Louis swallows down spiteful words that Zayn knows are latched onto the hollows of his throat and crosses his arms defiantly, kicking at Zayn’s chair again though Zayn’s almost certain he was aiming for Harry’s ankle.

“I _don’t_ ,” Louis bites and he doesn’t, really. Thinks of it as a waste of time, an afterthought between breakfast and dinner that he simply can’t stomach. He prefers a Styrofoam cup of tea and a copy of the Banker instead, lounging on one of the maroon settees in the lobby while pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

“But you need your carbohydrates and amino acids for strength and stamina,” Harry counters, waving a plastic fork at Louis with a decisively wondrous grin. He tilts his head in admiration rather than affection to add, “And fresh water for longevity. Some good chamomile tea.”

Louis scoffs, the corner of his lip twitching with his scowl. “I’ve never had any complaints in the bedroom about my stamina, thank you,” he argues, a thickness to his tone that is recognizable without trying – _annoyance_.

Harry’s jaw goes slack and Zayn drops his chin to mute his laugh. Liam steals the rest of his apple before adding, “Protein is good for you.”

“I get that in loads, mate, when I swallow – “

“ _Tommo_ ,” Zayn squeaks with a smoke-raspy voice and Louis grins triumphantly when Liam blushes and Harry’s shoulders drop.

He’s not quite sure why – at least not now, but maybe later – he echoes Liam’s friendly smile while Harry and Louis exchange confused stares and, when Liam careens a little closer to point out the art design in the comic anchored on Zayn’s thighs, he thinks of the plotline in the _Age of Apocalypse_ series and he thinks he feels just like that – battle-worn and searching for salvation – for just a brief moment.

“Oi, when did ya lot start fraternizing with the common folk ‘round these parts?” Niall teases as he drops down into the unoccupied seat next to Harry with a plate of microwaved leftover pizza and a bottle of chocolate milk – _how very secondary school_ , Zayn thinks.

Harry grins and turns a little to Liam to whisper, “Are we _common_ now?”

Liam shrugs, his smile at half-tide before he traces his eyes over the coloring in Zayn’s tattoos and the complexity of the ink –

And Zayn doesn’t blush as much as he expects under that long gaze but he shifts uncomfortably in his chair and munches into the apple to saturate his suddenly dry throat.

“We are _not_ socializing with redtags, you twit,” Louis grumbles, his hip cocked out and his jaw tight and that scowl remain motionless even when Niall grins up at him with too much affection in his eyes. “We are not, right Zaynie?”

“What’s a redtag?” Harry asks before Zayn can corral words together and Niall chuckles into his pizza while Liam squeaks.

“ _Interns_ ,” Liam and Niall say together, sharing an amused smile across Harry and they bump fists like fucking best mates on holiday.

Zayn laughs to himself, chewing the inside of his lip and watching the way Liam’s eyes wrinkle around the edges when he smiles back. Louis groans in frustration and Zayn steals his eyes away because _three months and that’s it Malik_ rings in his head like an alarming reminder that none of this will matter in September.

“Don’t mind him,” Niall tells Harry while Liam reaches across to steal Niall’s folded up, leftover crust and Zayn watches the way the three of them weave together so easily – like he and Louis did, so long ago. Niall adds sugar to Harry’s tea, takes a sip and winks at Louis before adding, “He’s always been a bit of an arsehole. Think he was born that way.”

“Oh,” Harry quips, leaning back in his chair and Niall feeds him a few grapes before Harry mumbles, “Does that mean this summer is going to be hell?”

“Fucking bastard,” Louis moans, dragging reckless fingers through his hair and it comes up on the pull of impatience that draws a laugh from Niall’s lips.

“Just talk about football and how much Manchester United sucks and you’ll win this bloke over,” Niall assures, kicking at Louis’ shin while swallowing back the rest of Harry’s tea. “Me? I’m rooting for Derby, naturally.”

“Wicked,” Harry croons like a California-bred surfer raging off too much weed and sunshine. He pushes back his curls in a neat sweeping motion and flicks the added fringe from his forehead before pushing up a grin. “I prefer American football, personally. My stepdad has me rooting for the Packers. Ever heard of ‘em?”

Niall nods and Liam hums some sort of approval and Zayn chokes a sigh into the center of his throat at the way they fit: far from impersonal or foreign and it leaves a nice shiver up his arms in the wake of their smiles.

“I’m cheering for the Steelers,” Niall puts in and Liam mumbles something about the Patriots and Zayn and Louis trade looks of confusion that roars a laugh from Niall’s swaying body.

The collision of their laughter is a car pile-up and a hurricane in his ears and he finds the contrast in Niall’s scarlet cheeks and the width of Harry’s smile and the way Liam’s eyes look – _hypnotic_ sits on his tongue until he can’t rid himself of the flavor. Louis yanks out a chair and twists it around until he’s sitting on it backwards, living in his own anarchy and defiance like the leader of the pack. Zayn bites at his thumbnail and just watches – sinking, no, _drowning_ in the way they create this anchor by accident rather than by intention and direction.

Liam draws invisible linear lines across the table, fingers bumping Zayn’s knuckles, shuffling over the small stack of comics like all of his nervous energy can’t be contained. It’s a stroke of adrenaline, the way all of his jokes aren’t really funny and he tries to keep up with Niall’s vibrancy and the way Harry talks in this slow, methodical tone that’s deep like he’s just finished smoking a pack or swallowing a cock. Zayn maps out the muscles buried under Liam’s skin, the way his cheeks freckle pink when he talks for too long, the dissimilarity between those brown eyes and blonde eyelashes and the maze of prickly hairs on his head.

He listens intently while they chat, studying the softness of their faces when they smile or the edge of hardness when Niall and Liam try to concentrate on Harry’s lengthy stories and, out the corner of his eye, he catches Louis watching him like _he knows_ but he doesn’t say anything. He merely smirks and steals the cheese off Niall’s pizza, nodding along until Zayn’s cheeks go hot.

Zayn clears his throat, kicks out of the chair, and it feels like a dozen eyes are on him but he only notices Liam’s –

It feels organic in ways he doesn’t dare question but his fingers catch on his hair and his bones go weak and he steps back before the embarrassment truly sets in.

“Need to get back to work,” Zayn mumbles, scooping up his comics and avoiding Liam’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Louis chuckles, tipping his head back with that bittersweet arrogance Zayn hates. “Work seems quite appropriate, eh lads?”

Niall agrees around a mouth of pizza while Harry nods and Liam reclines further in his chair, fingers running idly up the side of his forearm. Zayn takes in the four, thick chevrons and wonders the meaning for a breath before sighing.

“You lot can muck around a little longer,” he says, trying to school the defeated look on his face while stuffing his comics into his shoulderbag. “Got loads of sketches to look over before submitting this next issue.”

He scuffs his boots on the cheap tile and jerks his head at Louis as to say _‘rooftop, you and me’_ but Louis misses the signal around another one of Harry’s stories and Zayn blindly flips him off with a half-smirk before moving away from the table, attuning his thoughts to perfecting superhero capes rather than the sudden need to sketch out Violator with a softer, wrinkled pattern around his eyes whenever he smiles.

 

//

 

“You wear glasses when you sketch sometimes.”

It’s a Thursday and they’ve faltered upon this random routine by accident, Zayn’s sure. Small chats between smudges of ink and scraps of wasted paper and fingertips decorated in different colored Sharpie’s. Liam’s always beside him, carefully behind him, watching Zayn’s every motion and trying to mimic them on his own sketchpad but never asking too much. He never really questions Zayn’s method or makes Zayn feel awkward starting with the arms, sometimes the torso rather than blocking out the face and positioning like most artists do.

Liam hums along to Zayn’s playlist even though Zayn’s filled it with obscure rap songs he thinks no one knows yet, a few rhythmic acoustic songs that pick apart the cells in his blood until he’s calm, distorted from his surroundings. He watches, from the corner of his eye, as Liam draws invisible lines across used paper or lazily etches out Thor on the corner of wrinkled sheets, quietly quoting lines from _the Dark World_ – which he’s seen _four_ times, but Zayn only knows that because he’s overheard Liam telling an oblivious Harry at what is now dubbed ‘ _their lunch table,_ ’ even if Zayn is only there for the coffee and desolate atmosphere.

Zayn tips his head up a little, humming a response and dragging a heavy pencil over the curve of Amelia’s, Violator’s reluctant _leading lady_ , hip. He’s always imagined her as the anti-hero, the reporter a bit more defiant than Lois Lane with the kind of accidental genius of Sue Storm and unexpected courage of Mary Jane Watson.

He blinks over his shoulder at Liam, watching the way white teeth crease his bottom lip and the curve of his mouth twitches. He eyes the constriction in Liam’s throat, the way a shaky hand slides over buzzed hair and the sun sinks in through a nearby window to cast unforgiving shadows over the line of his jaw, the fair stubble on his chin.

Liam’s lips break for a small laugh, the sound a bit choked, with fingers cupping the nape of his neck. “You wear glasses sometimes when you’re sketching,” he repeats, kicking the toe of his Converse across the floor. “And you don’t talk much when you’re working. And you like your coffee black – “

“Sometimes,” Zayn notes with a small nod. His own fingers catch on the product in his hair, his thumb brushing over the blonde streaks in the front. “I add cream when – “

“When you’re inking,” Liam smiles, the tension holding his shoulders loosening. He reaches for his can of Coke, slurping loudly like a kid on too much sugar and pizza. His cheeks tint under Zayn’s gaze and he looks away, teeth still pinching his lip. “And you chew on your pencils.”

Zayn adjusts his glasses, glances downward to the small collection of pencils littered with teeth marks in the soft wood. He smirks, tongue pressing to the back of his teeth before adding inflection to Amelia’s smirk.

“You like Drake and Jay-Z,” Liam adds, sliding back in his chair and balancing his notebook on his knees. The sun illuminates a galaxy of auburn, rusted honey in his eyes and Zayn thinks that’s far too distracting to concentrate on. “Sometimes I listen to Wiz Khalifa when I’m drawing. Or _trying_ to, at least.”

Zayn snorts, his own teeth dragging over the chapped, rough edges of his lip. He unconsciously reaches back, leads Liam’s struggling hand over the guidelines and directs his path around the rough of Thor’s muscles. The touch is hot, his fingers to Liam’s wrist and the shift of veins or the twist of tendons, and he pulls back just to focus.

“You’re pretty good,” Zayn admits lowly, leaning over his desk to camouflage his smile and shut his eyes against the push of his heart against his chest.

“Not better than you,” Liam laughs, the sound still nervous, still a bit embarrassed like Zayn’s some sort of idol, a well-disguised hero.

“Favorite part of _the Avengers_?” Zayn asks as a diversion, lowering his eyes to the stray lines his pencil provides when he loses concentration.

“Easy,” Liam beams, fingers shuffling up through clipped hair. “The fight between Thor and Hulk.”

Zayn blinks up, lifting a wayward eyebrow. He’s not expecting Liam’s smile or the width of his eyes or the frankness of his mouth – lips like sweet spun sugar, tongue peeking past his teeth.

“Not the – “

Liam shakes his head quickly, snickering. “Everyone loves it when Tony saves the day or when the Hulk smashes the fighter jet but, I dunno, I sort of like it when those two battle it out.”

Zayn lifts his shoulders noncommittally, nodding. “Guess so.”

“I think Thor is much stronger than – “

Zayn’s spine tightens at the strangled noise that flees the back of his throat. His fingers curl around his pencil and he glares over his shoulder at Liam.

“Are you daft, man? The Hulk would’ve killed him,” Zayn argues with a furrowed brow.

Liam smirks, tipping his head to the side like he’s admiring. He squirms a little in his seat and a laugh is loosened from his lips when Zayn wrinkles his nose.

“He’s a _Norse god_ , dude. There’s no way,” Liam tells him. His teeth find his lip automatically and his fingers hide the doodles he’s attached to the corner of his paper.

Zayn lifts his brow, turns away at the crinkle of Liam’s eyes and shuts his eyes to burn the image away. It doesn’t work and he steadies his pencil along foreign lines instead, giving definition to Amelia’s eyes.

“DC or Marvel?” he asks lowly, flicking his tongue over dry lips.

Liam scoots closer and the breath of his cologne is faint compared to the scent of his body wash – something tangerine, almost sweet like honeydew but not as fragrant. Zayn chews the inside of his mouth, scribbles buildings and stars into the background before the muscles in his arms go tense off the warmth of Liam’s nearby body. He doesn’t question the unfamiliar rapt of his heart under his ribs but he times his breathing to the shuffled music on his phone, through the headphones – _Whenever you need me, whenever you want me. You know you can call me, I’ll be there shortly._

“Both,” Liam mumbles with a shy smile and lips stained caramel by the Coke. He licks it away and Zayn’s breath doesn’t stutter as much as it hiccups.

“But I like a bunch of stuff, y’know,” Liam adds, reaching past Zayn’s shoulder – arms accidentally brushing, fingers absently running the bones of Zayn’s wrist – for a fountain pen. He pulls back quickly, slinking down into his seat before he says, “I sorta like stuff like _Scott Pilgrim_ too. Have you ever heard of him?”

Zayn can’t help the smile that stretches over his lips when he looks up, tries to shield it with his shoulder but it feels impossible when Liam watches him like some sort of wonder to the world –

Liam doesn’t make him feel distant or awkward or _exotic_ feels like the proper adjective because most of the women, some of the men too, have whispered that to him while trying to trace the fabric of his jeans for the shape of his cock as if to say _‘if you give up more than just those pretty eyes, you’ll make it much further in this business, stop being such a tease.’_

He doesn’t shiver at the way Liam’s mouth curves higher but he lowers his eyes again and softens his voice to whisper _‘we are Sex Bob-omb’_ just before Liam sighs out a quiet giggle.

Liam’s shoulders lift and tense, a hand on the back of his neck as he ducks his head and Zayn scrubs at his own hair because Liam is much more of a Young Neil rather than a reluctant hero. Not that he’ll say that aloud but he thinks it, his thumb absently brushing his own cheek silver from the charcoal.

“The film is _sick_ ,” Zayn tells him, trying to pattern out the blush straining against Liam’s cheeks when he lifts his head again. “Knives was quite gangster at the end.”

There’s a reverence to Liam’s expression that Zayn admires. His eyes light up like the dust from stars and the trail of bonfires in the night and Zayn’s fingers itch to pencil out each freckle and the slope of Liam’s nose on paper. He bites into his lower lip while Liam swallows more Coke and their silence sways quietly like morning tides.

“I have all of the comics at my flat,” Liam admits with a sticky tongue and a breath of earnest at the back of his throat. He’s still scrubbing knuckles over his prickly hair, fiddling with the hem of his flannel shirt until the buttons loosen. “You can borrow them if you want.”

Zayn snorts, shaking his head. He turns a little in his chair, wiping his stained fingers on his jeans.

“Got ‘em all,” Zayn mumbles, lips shifting upward in a crooked line and his cheeks run hot under Liam’s large gaze. “I met the artist when he came to London. Spotted him at a small comic book shop.”

“Epic,” Liam whispers, dazed and dizzy and that vacant look in his eyes nearly swallows Zayn up.

“Hey Malik,” Max calls out, three desks away with a smug grin and paint splattered across his knuckles. He clears his throat roughly, a noise that echoes over Liam’s breathing and Zayn jerks his head up.

Max sniffs at him, leaning over his desk. “My fuck-head intern must’ve got lost trying to find the copy room. Tell your redtag to grab me a coffee and one of those sweet biscuits from the lobby.”

Zayn scrunches his brow, spare fingers absently curling into fists. He feels the muscles of his shoulders tighten, the stretch of his spine curl before he narrows eyes at Max. His lips twist and he’s reduced to small vocabulary for Max when Liam raises a hand, pats Zayn’s shoulder like _‘relax Caped Crusader, I’ve got this.’_

“Cream or sugar?” Liam offers up, laying his sketchbook in his seat as he stands, cleaning his fingers on the back of his chinos. He smiles at Max, nonthreatening and bright, just to unsettle him.

“Both,” Max hisses, easing back down onto his stool. He grunts out a _‘and hurry up’_ with his head lowered, teeth catching his tongue as he splashes more color to his unfinished sketch.

Liam nods quickly, gliding on his heels to face Zayn. His smile twitches and his fingers reflexively drum along the sides of his thighs, swaying to muted music and large eyes hold Zayn still.

“S’ppose I could grab a cup of tea and a bag of crisps,” Liam suggests, teeth flicking the skin of his lip white.

Zayn nods, cripples his quiff with anxious fingers and he swallows down his sigh because when has he ever been reduced to childlike behavior by soft eyes? He buries those thoughts, along with his complicated breaths and sudden need to grab Liam by the wrist to teach him all of the best spots to find coffee and snacks in the building, under the shallow stretch of his lungs. He snatches up his beaten up pack of Marlboro’s and flicks his eyes toward the hallway.

“Think I’ll grab a smoke,” Zayn tells him, stretching when he stands and loosening the tension beneath his bones.

Liam smiles, uncertain and uneven, before taking a few clumsy steps backwards.

“Okay,” he says, nibbling at his lip. “I’ll grab us some chocolate and you’ll show me how to draw facial expressions when you get back.”

Liam stumbles away with a snicker and an anchoring smile before Zayn can argue. There’s a stain of satin pink against his cheeks when he glances over his shoulder at Zayn from the archway and Zayn squeezes his fingers around a cigarette, lungs anticipating the saturation of nicotine to calm the roar of his heart.

He pretends not to watch Liam when he jogs down the hall and waits exactly ten seconds before he takes his next breath, the burn down the center of his chest sharper than he cares for.

 

//

 

It becomes an unintentional thing – the five of them crowded around a small table in the corner of that meek cafeteria with plates of rubbish food, stretched out like teenage boys on a night in. Louis sips on hot tea, Harry insists upon raw vegetables and sliced fruit while Niall stuffs his mouth with brownie’s and lukewarm burgers. Liam shares his flavored water even though Zayn swears against the stuff and they trade their favorite comics silently, laughing to each other as they point out the best parts. There’s a rotation of childhood dreams and stories of home that Zayn envelopes himself in and he learns about Liam’s two sisters, his father’s work in an airplane factory, and the way his mum always, _always_ cooks him breakfast in bed when he visits.

Louis grows a little attached to Liam, only because of their shared interest in football, something Niall joins in on, and Zayn thinks Harry’s quite funny, even when he’s not trying to be. Niall listens intently to Louis’ conquests and Harry tangles himself around Liam when he talks about wanting more ink – Zayn’s already memorized the flow of his skin beneath those dark arrows and the symmetry of fine script across his other arm pulls on Zayn anytime it peeks beneath his rolled up sleeves. They talk about useless things like their favorite movies and the best characters and drunken memories until Zayn needs a smoke and an escape from the way Liam watches him sketch, with bent knees and a notebook in his lap, when he thinks the world is ignoring him.

“I don’t date,” Harry says almost too casually with a mouthful of iceberg lettuce and a Vitamin water clutched between long fingers. His curls are softer than usual, swept across his brow and the streaming sunlight from a pale afternoon halo harmonically around his head like the chords of a John Mayer song.

Louis balks in his chair, still turned backwards with his chin resting on the back of it. His lips jolt, his eyes widening like pools of chlorine in the summer.

“What in the actual fuck?” he hisses, straightening the curve of his spine. He sips quietly at his tea, hissing at the sting before adding, “What do you mean _you don’t date_?”

Harry shrugs and Zayn grins smugly. Louis’ been doing this for two weeks now – devoting his complete attention to Harry’s every word even though he swears he’s not interested. Harry’s not his type, but Louis loves a challenge and, unconsciously, Harry is just that. It’s silly, really, because he knows Louis’ not trying to accomplish much – maybe a quick fuck, a long blowjob, probably some mutual handwork – but, with Louis, it always feels like more.

It feels like validation and a reassurance Louis can’t find in his job or his fancy London flat or the promises he makes in the dark about being someone great one day.

“I don’t date,” Harry repeats, swallowing down gold liquid and picking out the blueberries from his bowl of fruit, dumping them onto Niall’s plate with a clever grin. He nudges a smile off Niall’s lips with an elbow before turning his eyes back to Louis. “Dating is cheap and complete rubbish. It’s a film and one person buying popcorn and then a quick shag in someone’s car.”

Louis blinks at him, his jaw slack. “You want a long shag?”

“Maybe,” Harry huffs, shrugging again. He sinks down into his chair, propping his feet in Niall’s lap.

“Who has time for that,” Louis huffs, making a face at Harry’s cheeky smile.

“I do,” Harry declares, wiggling his eyebrows and shuffling a grin over his lips at Niall’s strangled whine. “Plus I have the stamina from the avocado and whole wheat bread. Oh, and the lack of sugary fats – “

“You’re absolutely mad, you know that?” Louis snaps but there’s a tenderness beneath the flick of his tongue that Zayn smiles at, slouching in his chair with his boots kicked up on an empty chair and Liam stealing bites from his apple.

“Silver Surfer?” Liam asks over Zayn’s shoulder, dragging his chair closer until Zayn’s spine pushes against his chest.

Zayn ducks his head, his hair soft today and brushing the peak of his brow. He shades the fondness in his smile when Liam’s fingers smudge a few of the lines around the torso, adding shadows and definition to muscle.

“Yeah,” he whispers, retracing the softer strokes from earlier to darken the tone of his jaw. “He’s kind of wicked.”

“Galactus is better,” Liam teases, nudging gentle knuckles against Zayn’s side.

“’s not,” Zayn laughs, his voice tangled around a giddy feeling that chokes down his breath and shivers across the planes of his back where their skin meets. He nudges Liam with an elbow, tips his head back just a little to offer Liam a small grin before muttering, “I thought you were a DC kid.”

Liam snorts, stealing Zayn’s pencil to stroke out the curves of the metallic surfboard that Zayn can’t seem to perfect. “I fancy both, remember?”

Zayn does. He remembers Liam going on about hating the first Wolverine film, his favorite scenes from _X-Men 2_ , why he prefers _the Dark Knight Rises_ to almost all of the other movies because of Bane alone. They argued over Jack Nicholson versus Heath Ledger and smiled behind cups of warm tea about the future of a Justice League film.

And he thinks it’s near-impossible to forget how easily Liam smiles when Zayn describes his desire to draw his own comic series one day, some silly idea he’s had since he was thirteen with paint-speckled fingers and a small bedroom decorated in poor drawings back in Bradford.

His spine calms and his muscles roll like the opening of a sunrise when Liam’s fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck, everything incredibly electric and he doesn’t know when it started – the little touches, the way they’ve grown so comfortable around each other – but it’s so hard to sway from. It’s embarrassing the way his skin heats up and his flesh prickles around the touch.

“Maybe the right bird hasn’t – “

Harry clears his throat to interrupt Louis, fixing his curls into a floppy style before curving his smile.

“ _Boys_ , Louis,” he clarifies with that deep, calming voice that moves just as steady as California oceans. “Not much into lip gloss and silk knickers these days.”

Louis chokes on a swallow of tea and Niall laughs helplessly into the sleeve of Harry’s button up, tickling his fingers over Harry’s scattered tattoos like they’re constellations leading him home. He nicks Louis’ Aviators to toss over his eyes, hiding from the bleary sun that warms over their table and across their skin.

“That’s hot, man,” Niall declares, a little waver in his voice like he wants to say more. He tips his head back onto Harry’s shoulder, rearranges Harry’s boots in his lap and they’re tangled like schoolboys hiding from the world.

Harry smirks into Niall’s frosted blonde, biting into chunky cantaloupe.

“You think so?” Harry wonders, his tone aloof like he’s high off killer weed, in his own dimension. “I’ve gotta be honest, mate, blokes give pretty sick head.”

“Harry,” Liam whines, nudging him under the table and Louis nearly tips out of his chair with parted lips and a shivered gasp.

Harry chuckles, knocking Liam away and curling around Niall like he needs protection. “Just an observation.”

“S’cool,” Niall assures him, spreading out his smile and thumbing at all the varied ink across Harry’s bicep. “It’s good to try new things.”

Zayn smiles into his sketch when Louis arches an eyebrow, leaning in with anticipation.

“Something you’d like to share Horan?” he asks, his words calmed by the rush of his grin.

Niall shrugs. “I dunno. I’m not like _that_ , y’know.”

“We all are,” Harry argues with a thick kindness, shuffling bony fingers through Niall’s disheveled hair. “It’s in our nature.”

“Where the fuck are you from, dude?” Louis moans and Harry reels back with laughter that echoes until too many eyes fixate on their table.

“I mean,” Niall starts, shyly, like there’s something to hide beneath his rose-colored cheeks and cosmic blues. He uses the back of his hand to wipe away the stickiness from the fruit Harry feeds him, clearing his throat. “It’s all just fun, y’know? Like, me and the delivery guy. Josh, remember?”

Louis nods slowly and Zayn’s smile turns crooked at the way Niall’s breathing shifts erratically. It’s not that he knows but he’s caught the way Niall and Josh huddle in corners of the lobby, the way Josh grips Niall’s shoulder when they laugh together, their foreheads bumping and feet shuffling between the others. Far too close to be mates but just the right amount of distance to leave questioning between their quiet breaths.

“We have threesomes, sometimes, with that one bird from accounting. Her name is Cher,” Niall adds with a heavy tongue.

“ _Christ_ ,” Louis hisses and Harry coils further around Niall with interest, smiling into his cheek.

Niall licks out a smile, lifting his eyebrows. “You know – one of those _‘just bros’_ kind of threesomes where you don’t really do anything with the other dude. Maybe just feel him up a bit to get ‘im going, hold the other girl’s head down when she gives him a blowjob and maybe a quick snog goodnight like _‘good job, mate for making her come three times.’_ ”

Louis breathes out a long breath, Liam chuckling into his fist with crimson cheeks, a certain shade of wild pink down his neck. Zayn bites into his pencil while Harry hums his approval into the back of his neck until the other boy untangles his spine from that tight coil.

Louis leans back, loosening his tie and flicking the first few buttons of his jacket open before sighing, “Oh right, one of those. You know, like you see in _gay porn_ , Horan.”

Harry barks out a laugh, tightening his arms around Niall’s neck before he can kick at Louis under the table. Liam shivers behind Zayn with a giggle and his breath coats the back of Zayn’s neck in warm, warm waves that Zayn drowns in. He strays lines across his paper and shoves his bottom lip between his teeth to calm the stutter of his heart when Liam’s fingers grip around his wrist to prevent him from mucking up his drawing.

“Careful,” Liam whispers with a voice still caught on his laugh, rerouting Zayn’s fingers until he’s tracing earlier lines a little more affectionately. “I want that when you’re done.”

Zayn looks back over his shoulder, abashed, and Liam’s modest smile diffuses the rush of adrenaline through his blood until he fishes a Marlboro from its pack and stumbles out of his chair.

He watches Liam collapse inward a little, tucking his chin and pushing out a sad little smile that he tries not to analyze because _three months, Malik, remember_. He tucks his sketchpad under his arm and tugs Louis out of his seat by the collar instead, shucking an arm around tense shoulders and dragging him half away from the table with a nervous laugh.

“Time for a smoke,” he insists when he looks at Harry and Niall, waggling his eyebrows for amusement. “C’mon Cyrano.”

Louis squeaks and weakly tries to shake Zayn away as he drags them toward the lifts. He laughs around the cigarette between his lips at Louis’ protest of _‘who the fuck is that, you idiot’_ and doesn’t bother looking back to see if Liam’s watching them. He succumbs to strength and courage, nearly lighting up before they reach the roof to drown out the way he wants to tuck Liam’s bottom lip between his own teeth and imagines the thickness of Liam’s voice when someone swallows him down or the way his calloused fingers probably leave behind small bruises across hips when he’s anxious and possibly needy while fucking someone.

But the suggestion will settle into his thoughts later on and he knows he’ll slick his stomach with come on the idea alone.

 

//

 

“This view up here is smashing!”

Harry’s voice carries loud over the rush of London traffic and the call of the early summer wind. It echoes off the small buildings and washes down to the streets below and Louis groans just as noisily, sighing into his fist from where he’s perched on the back of the couch on the roof.

“I can’t believe you invited them up,” Louis whines, nudging a foot into Zayn’s side.

Zayn swats him away, scowling before slipping a cigarette between his lips. The mid-June sun pixelates tangerine and flaxen over the Friday sky, streaking down onto the flat planes of the roof, washing over the stone of the ledge as Harry and Liam lean over it with overzealous smiles and large eyes, giggling to each other like pubescent teens. Zayn grips his own smirk around his cigarette, flicking the flame over the tip and he tilts his head backwards to blow out the initial drag for the effect rather than the taste.

“I didn’t invite them,” Zayn insists through clenched teeth, dragging his voice downward. “Liam was curious as to where I go and – “

“And the little pup followed you, right along with his little curly-haired sidekick,” Louis protests, kicking at Zayn again.

Zayn reaches back to smack a hand against Louis’ thigh and shifts over enough for Niall to wedge between them with a half-eaten bag of crisps and a bottled root beer.

“They’re not so bad,” Niall offers with a mild shrug, slouching into the worn cushions. “I like ‘em.”

“You like _everyone_ you troll,” Louis grumbles but half of his frown is marred by a smile just for Niall.

“I don’t like _you_ ,” Niall lies, nudging closer to Louis and resting his chin on Louis’ bent knee. “Not all the time, at least.”

“Fuck off,” Louis laughs out, tangling his fingers in Niall’s sloppy hair before fixing the collar of his twice-stained shirt from morning coffee and dubious flirtation with Cher by the lifts. “They’re redtags. They’re not a part of our group.”

“We have a group now?” Niall wonders with large, curious eyes.

Zayn shrugs nonchalantly and sucks in another smoky breath from his cigarette until the cherry is a blistering orange and his lungs fog up. He huffs the smoke out lazily through his nose and picks bits of lint from Niall’s slacks.

They’re misfits, this little makeshift family of he, Louis, and Niall and it’s not that they keep to themselves on purpose. They play cordial and chat up everyone who speaks but there’s this unbroken promise, silent in agreement, they created a year ago to always be there for each other. Three drifters in a city too big with dreams too wide to contain and they’ve been his flagship, his constant when doubt rings in and self-consciousness disrupts his waking thoughts.

It’s a nameless trio of boys that reminds him of home and Ant and Danny and the kind of adventures you can’t predict but live for.

“We have a _something_ ,” Louis declares, reaching over Niall to steal the cigarette and he puffs angrily through it, never soaking in the flavor but clouding his disdain with its density. “Fucking trespassers.”

Zayn laughs low, a throaty sound that Louis scoffs at. He takes back the cigarette, looks through half-lidded eyes at the way Liam steps up on the ledge, spreads his arms wide like bird’s wings and he looks every bit a kid, every little stitch of Jack Dawson on the Titanic with Harry cheering him on, curls bouncing with his rabid laughter. Zayn smiles at them, tilting his head back to filter the sun through his eyelashes and trace the smudged lines of Liam’s smile, the creases around his eyes, the way all of his muscles scrunch up like he’s happy and embarrassed at the same time.

It’s fixating, a bit debilitating, but he swallows mouthfuls of smoke to evaporate the lingering sting of it and lets the sun warm his face instead.

“They’re cool kids,” Niall says mockingly, folding his legs under himself and rocking to the rhythm of unheard music, humming out – _you grip your hands around my throat and you strip the buttons off my coat and I choose the methods I do best_ – until his voice gets gravelly and sweet next to the sound of cars below.

“They’re interns,” Louis hisses, choking on his next drag when Harry pushes back his curls and flashes a smile that’s unguarded and pulsing. “Fucking kids.”

“They’re our age, Tommo,” Zayn reminds him, lighting up a fresh cigarette.

Louis stubs a new burn hole with the old one, his face scrunching up. “Your point?”

“Still a bit fussy because Haz won’t let you suck his dick?” Niall teases, nudging Louis’ thigh before dragging him down onto the cushions, cuddling up like a sleepy child around their stuffed animal.

“He turned my fucking invitation to dinner into an excuse to invite the whole marketing floor out for a tournament of FIFA and beers,” Louis groans, burying his face in the hollow of Niall’s neck with a choked whine. “Fucking arse.”

Niall spits out a fizz of carbonation and Zayn tips back with a small laugh, tossing an arm around Niall’s shaking shoulders with a grin.

“He likes the Arctic Monkeys,” Louis adds with a hiss when the crunch of the gravel signals they’re approach, Liam tilting up a grin while Harry surveys more of the scenery like a kid in Oz. “And he smells funny.”

“He smells fine,” Niall argues lowly, elbowing Louis.

“He does,” Louis concedes in a defeated voice, slumping up against the couch and drawing up his knees. “Bet he smells like heaven when he’s getting fucked.”

Niall groans while Zayn chokes on a noise, shaking his head. The shadows of Liam’s figure wash over him, the sun blanketed by wide shoulders and the cool darkness shades out bits of Liam’s scrunched face from this angle but he can still make out the chocolate of his eyes, the tint of his pinkish lips like a newborn infant’s skin. It startles Zayn a little – not the definition but the way Liam is probably so plain to so many people but, for him, he’s smudged paint on a blank canvas; _hypnotic_ – and he puffs meditatively on his cigarette while Liam stands over him with a hand on the nape of his neck and his feet shuffling over the broken up rocks.

Harry flanks Louis’ other side, folding an arm around the back of the couch with a smirk and a fist bump for Niall. Niall chuckles and nudges Louis with a sharp elbow, a quick wink before finishing off his crisps and the quiet whine from Louis’ lips reaches Zayn’s ear over the hum of his own heartbeat.

The sun picks apart glittery dust behind Liam. The sky runs a shallow periwinkle, the height of blue before the clouds slant by and Zayn eyes the way Liam looks down at him like he’s asking permission. He stutters from foot to foot and laughs nervously and Zayn blows smoke from his lips into the wind. He shrugs for Liam, balancing an arm around Niall’s shoulders before Liam wedges himself between the arm of the couch and Zayn’s hips.

“ _So_ ,” Harry says in that awkward voice he’s mastered and Louis turns to Niall rather than Harry, “heard you two know the good places to go on the weekends?”

Zayn lifts his brow casually, huffing through another pull, letting his lips part only halfway for the smoke to filter through. He pushes back his hair while Louis sighs, harboring his laugh in his chest rather than his throat.

“Come on,” Harry protests, nudging Louis’ ribs with bony fingers. “I’ve been wasting away in my flat on Saturdays for almost a month now. My flatmates are quite boring.”

“And you’re not?” Louis chides over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow at Harry.

“You think I’m boring?” Harry inquires, his voice small, wounded.

Louis rolls his eyes immediately, nudging closer to Niall. “Not the point,” he snaps, fiddling with his sleeves and neatly rolling them up mid-forearm. “Zee and I mostly kick around on the weekends. Skate around a few streets. Y’know, fuck shit up.”

“Fuck shit up,” Harry repeats quietly, his voice still that sticky deepness, raspy on the ends. “Sounds brilliant.”

“You skate?” Liam asks from the corner, tilting his head.

Zayn swallows another billow of smoke, letting the clouds swirl in his chest until the flame licks at his bones. He half-shrugs, tipping his head back to blow the mist away from Liam.

“Sometimes,” Zayn replies, teeth gnawing at his lip. “It’s a real chill thing to do, y’know. Like, Lou’s best mate Stan gutted out his parent’s old swimming pool into a sick half-pipe. ‘s real gangsta, dude.”

Liam blinks at him, head still tilted, with a smile half the size of the sun and just the smallest wrinkles around his eyes. His thumb strokes the barely visible stubble from a morning of not shaving and the light catches the structure of his cheeks, the fair accentuation.

Zayn bites at a knuckle, stirs only slightly when Louis snatches the half-finished cigarette from between his fingers while Harry hums off a few lyrics from Bon Iver – _Our love is a star. Sure some hazardry. For the light before and after most indefinitely._

“Don’t you know some cool spots in the theatre district Tommo?” Niall points out with a wide smile, ignoring Louis’ snarl in favor of Harry’s bright eyes, the way he tangles his fingers around Louis’ wrist like a plea. “Some real chillin’ places to hang out. And that one takeaway spot where they serve sticky beef down in Soho?”

“Shut it Horan,” Louis hisses, shoving at Niall and the motion knocks Zayn’s shoulder with Liam’s.

Zayn eases back with his lip still between his teeth and pretends not to enjoy the fumbling smirk on Liam’s cotton candy lips. He busies himself with the hum of traffic and the way Niall and Louis bicker while Harry begs at Louis. He feels Liam shove up the sleeve of his vintage X-Men t-shirt and watches him pull out a dull point Sharpie with an over-exaggerated smirk.

“This okay?” Liam asks, turning Zayn’s arm just a little between his fingers for an open space of skin.

Zayn shrugs halfheartedly and pushes down the pulse of his heart when Liam’s thumb scrubs over his flesh and his smile tilts crookedly. He bites at the sigh wadding on his tongue when the cool tip brushes his skin, takes a quick glance downward to the thick black lines the marker leaves behind before concentrating on the way Harry’s coiled around Louis and Niall’s half in Louis’ lap, puffing on the last pulls of the cigarette while feeding Harry gold-foiled chocolates.

“Who’s this?” Liam asks between shaded lines and his tongue trapped between his teeth.

Louis freezes and Niall chokes on his last breath of smoke while Zayn blinks down at the tattoo stitched across his bicep, just beneath Liam’s splayed fingers. He gnaws at his chapped lip, waits until the flush of his cheeks subsides before replying, “Nobody.”

There’s a rush of something sweet when Louis breathes again and Niall nudges up a little closer, hooking his chin on Zayn’s shoulder while Liam nods slowly.

“Looks like an anime girl,” Liam notes, lowering his eyes to finish his doodle over Zayn’s skin and Zayn wrinkles his nose with a grin.

He tries not to remember the cold leather of the tattooist’s chair, the way his fingers curled into his palm as the needle stroked in deep for the shading. He can still see Louis’ scrunched face and the pull of oxygen that seeps through his lungs tastes just as bitter as the night’s air when foreign fingers added the beanie, scarred his flesh with detailing on the jacket and hair.

“You into stuff like that?” Zayn wonders, lifting an eyebrow

“Maybe,” Liam says, a little shyly, a little happily. “Spent most of last summer catching up on _Cowboy Bebop_ and _Bleach_.”

Zayn’s more than a little wide-eyed when he looks down at the curve of Liam’s jaw and the earthy smile like he’s got a surprise under those lashes. His skin glows like the sun is embedded in it and his nose twitches with his abashed laugh, the ink from his Sharpie staining his thumb black as he adds details.

“You’re kind of,” Zayn stops on the words, teeth catching his tongue. He clears his throat and lets Liam twist his arm to show off his work. He squirms to get a closer look while Liam laughs into the exposed line of his neck, the warm tip of his nose just under Zayn’s jaw.

“What is it?” Niall asks, leaning in further with an elbow crushing Zayn’s ribs and a knee digging into his thigh.

Liam grins while the sun strokes heavy accents down his face, hiding the flow of pink and gleaming off the shine his tongue leaves behind on his lips.

He looks up through those thick blonde eyelashes, through the shadows that cascade over the tops of his cheeks and the tug of his mouth sideways steals Zayn’s breath.

“Remember how you were telling me about that comic book you want to draw?” he wonders, the tension in his throat caught like the edge of tongue.

Zayn does. He remembers that second week, just after midnight with too few cups of coffee and the stars burning up galaxies in the heavy purple sky. He remembers his desk light, the faded pale of it, streaming over doodled on pages and the ink from his best fountain pen draining out. He imagines the shadows draping over Liam’s slouched shoulders and the fluorescent glow from the overheads paling his complexion. He can still taste the words on his tongue, how he went on for an hour about his ideas and the story behind the main hero with sleepy eyes and a lethargic tongue and Liam nestled close to his side, hips almost brushing and fingers reaching for the same can of Coke just for the sugar high of it.

He remember the height of Liam’s smile and the rough skin of his knuckles and Liam’s eyes inking into his thoughts afterwards.

“I think your hero should I have a sidekick,” Liam suggests with a muted chuckle, thickening the lines of wide eyes and scrawling out the definition of the helmet. “Maybe a space monkey.”

Niall ducks into the hollow of Zayn’s collarbone with a laugh and Liam shies back into that tight space between Zayn and the arm of the couch, licking away his smile while using his thumb to wipe away smudged lines. _Amazing_ , Zayn thinks but keeps the word to himself while lifting his hand to drag curious fingers over the soft prickles on Liam’s head.

Liam looks up, puffing out his cheeks and stretching out his ears, a cheap imitation of Curious George that draws a laugh from Zayn’s chest and keeps his fingers secure on Liam’s scalp. Liam doesn’t shy away like he does when Harry does it, sometimes Louis, and Zayn catches the pike of his breath in his lungs when Liam curves into the touch and accidentally bumps his knuckles along the stereo inked over the inside of Zayn’s arm.

“Think we found your biggest fan, Malik,” Niall taunts quietly against the shell of Zayn’s ear and Zayn refuses to shove him off in fear of losing this connection with this boy who’s nothing like Zayn’s ready for.

Or _expecting_ or _interested in_ because, for fuck’s sake, Zayn doesn’t date interns.

And, tardily, he thinks it might be the stupidest rule he’s ever made for himself.

 

//

 

Zayn clears off a space for Liam at an unused desk next to his when one of the guys in the department gets a promotion – if you call it that because Zayn doesn’t, finds it cheap to replace handwork and colored pens for computer design – into the graphics department a month into the summer. He plays upon innocent when Liam walks into a new sketchpad, his own set of pencils, a fancy pen with fresh ink, and a stack of _Detective Comics_ and buries his smile behind his knuckles when Liam still anchors himself to Zayn’s side to watch him sketch out next month’s cover over a large poster board, elbows knocking and knees bumping and Zayn’s heart beats out of syncopation at the way Liam won’t stop smiling.

He thinks it’s silly, a bit immature at how Liam decorates his work space with various action figures from his favorite comics – an Incredible Hulk, a vintage Iron man to match the film version one in the corner, a dozen different Batman ones with a miniature Robin and an Anne Hathaway Catwoman stretched by his art supplies, with a Buzz Lightyear and Woody buried in the battlefield. He tells Liam, one afternoon through the haze of a cigarette and the sharpness of a black coffee, and the frown he’s met with is a little polarizing. He ignores it in favor of a subject change via Niall but it haunts him, the way Liam doesn’t really look at him the rest of the day and sketches lazy renditions of Hawkeye instead of patterning Zayn’s work.

Liam’s some kid caught up in a childhood dream, drawing for a second-rate comic book company that’ll never have the success of Marvel or the notoriety of DC but it’s all Liam’s ever wanted, Zayn thinks. It’s the late nights and the mild achievements and the wonder of creating something children can flock to their local store for each month just for a copy of their favorite hero –

And part of him wishes he still held onto his own dreams instead of settling for drawing a comic he doesn’t really like for a few pounds and an _in-the-meantime_ that’s lasted longer than a few breaths.

It blinds him, leaves him off-guard, one morning when he stumbles into the art department off five hours of sleep and five more panels left in this issue to find a figurine perched on the corner of his own desk – a black Power Ranger, his favorite even if he doesn’t really admit that to everyone – next to a cardboard cup of something not from Starbucks. Zayn bites down on his grin, hiding it like a secret between his teeth even though no one’s really watching him, and tentatively reaches out to stroke the firm plastic of the action figure, like the one he had as a kid and carried around his small house, shouting songs at the top of his lungs until his sister Doniya shoved him in a closet and begged for surrender.

His fingers catch on the sleek material before drifting to the steam sprouting out of the tiny lip of the plastic lid. He waves them over the smoke and chews the inside of his mouth when he turns the cup between his fingers, sighing happily at the stick figure drawn on the side – he’s got a poorly scrawled cape and there’s dots over the chin for stubble and broad, long strokes that represent tall hair with a smudge of yellow highlighter like the blonde streaks at the front of Zayn’s. He bites a little too firmly on his lip to hide his excited squeal and thumbs at the sticky note attached at the side of the cup instead – ‘ _we all have dreamssss, hero. hope you remember yurs xx Li – im in the copy room and ur late!_ ’.

It’s silly and trivial and cheap but it sparks an infectious smirk across Zayn’s lips, chases the oxygen from his lungs, and he lifts the coffee cup to examine it rather than breathe in the heady steam of Brazilian roast with light cream – the way he likes it, another thing Liam’s noticed when Zayn swears he’s been invisible to this city for the past two years.

He thumbs at the sticky note, over the ridiculously sloppy penmanship and turns the cup between his fingers to admire the stickman once more before Max clears his throat and manages to draw Zayn’s attention away.

“You alright there Malik?” he asks from three desks away now with a faded Ramones shirt and rips in his jeans. He’s got that month-long stubble across his cheeks and narrow eyes like the sun’s too bright in here. “You look kind of poorly.”

Zayn bites the tip of his tongue between his teeth, shrugging his leather jacket further up his shoulders before stashing his sketchbook under his arm, grinning widely. He flicks Max a finger with a _‘fuck you’_ kind of smirk before spinning on the heels of his combat boots and striding down the hall.

 

//

 

He finds Liam in the threshold of the copy room, leaning on the weak molding with a classic _Captain America_ issue between his fingers and a bowed head. The sun from a nearby window peaks little squares, gold octagons across the side of his face, over the broad shoulders and slips-slides down the narrow shape of his torso. He’s scuffing fresh Converse over the brick floor, humming to something a little distracting but not for the lyrics – for the sound of his timbre, the edge of his falsetto, the way his tongue wraps around the softer notes. His teeth catch that glycerin bottom lip before they can flake up into a smile he can barely contain and he hums quietly to the ‘ _when you say you need me, know I need you more’_ coating the slick of his tongue. He licks the pad of his thumb to turn the pages while the copiers reproduce sketches Zayn’s done, inked out scribbling of Violator and his alter-ego.

There’s a pause – no, a _pulse_ , an unsteady rhythm that ricochets from veins to heart – and his breathing spares him a second before it hitches at the slow lift of Liam’s head. The sun crowns the fuzzy shorn hair and Zayn’s fingers squeeze a little too adamantly around his coffee cup when Liam looks at him.

Zayn thinks of water-colored images of shorelines and words from nameless artists he’s read about in dusty, dense textbooks down at the London Library and he’s thoughtful before applying the _‘creativity takes courage’_ and the _‘if I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint’_ to the way Liam smiles at him when they look at each other.

“You found the coffee,” Liam says, sounding a little surprised and a lot pleased.

“I found you,” Zayn mumbles back, stepping closer and the adrenaline that circulates through his bloodstream is only cooled by the wake of Liam’s smile and the scent of strong coffee.

Liam leans further into the hallway, tipping his chin proudly and far from that shamelessly shy boy he was that first day. His grin is still a little distracting in an odd way and his thick eyebrows layer shadows over his eyes but those nervous twitches in his hands, the corners of his mouth seem a bit more endearing than they were four weeks ago.

“I got it from the fifth floor when I stopped in to see Haz,” Liam admits, the sleeve of his shirt pushed up to his elbow and the stain of arrows on his forearm standout starkly when he lifts his hand to rub the nape of his neck. “It’s the way you like, right?”

Zayn jabs a finger into Liam’s shoulder, waits for the feverish giggle before Liam’s swatting him back. Zayn stares, long and undisciplined, at him before catching the edge of his lip with sharp canines.

“The coffee is shit here,” he tells Liam, flicking his eyes over the exposed collarbone Liam offers, too many buttons undone at the top of his shirt. Liam’s cologne and his body wash and that boyish aroma orbits him and he’s a little too close but he doesn’t mind.

“But – “

Zayn shakes his head, absently letting fingers trace the thick, sharp edges of the chevrons as a diversion to his grin and the way his eyes follow the pattern of Liam’s chest as he breathes. He matches the tremors along Liam’s skin with the way his teeth seesaw over his lip and they bathe in silence until Zayn can gather words.

“I know a pretty chill place with some sick coffee,” Zayn offers between the ghosts of their breaths and the raise of goosebumps over Liam’s skin. Liam looks at the floor while Zayn watches the sun pattern triangles over his mouth. “Wanna go?”

The flutter of Liam’s eyelashes, like gold explosions, give away his thoughts and he looks up with a grin.

A ‘ _yes’_ doesn’t flee from his lips but his fingers steal the coffee from Zayn’s, depositing it on an unused copy machine before he turns to Zayn. He offers up a reluctant shrug and their knuckles brush all the way down the hallway, fingers catching every other step like they both want something more but they’re too scared to test the waters.

 

//

 

During Zayn’s first few months in London, when he was still an unknown and succumbing to teardrops soaking his pillows rather than admitting to his mum he missed home, he spent quite a few midnights under a dark amethyst sky that was smudged with a section of stars and heavy clouds. He wandered the streets with a notepad, a few pieces of charcoal, and a loss of navigation for the perfect landscape to sketch. He didn’t mind the absence of cold in the humid air or the glowing streets from the fluorescent and tangerine lights of the street lamps or the way the wind knocked fringe in his eyes when he tried to shade the shape of a tree over his paper. He tried to train his hands to techniques learned in basic art classes from school, the purpose behind shadows and light and the taste of copper from chewing his lip too hard when he mucked up didn’t sting as much as the way his hands would shake when he couldn’t find the right inspiration.

His favorite view was from a corner booth in a small diner south of Knightsbridge. The leather of the seats was ripped, patched together by delicate hands, with a shiny surface for a table, metallic borders and heavy circular lights overhead to accent the nostalgia of the restaurant. It housed a jukebox in the far corner that played old, jazzy stuff, sometimes a modern song from the late nineties, and floor-mounted stools with spinning tops. The sign was trimmed neon, the menus with their puckered plastic, and the service counter stretched the length of the floor from end to end.

He doesn’t know why – maybe it’s the freshly roasted coffee or that cute waitress with the platinum blonde hair and wide eyes or the way this place is always so _alive_ even though it’s nearly half-empty most of the time – but it’s the kind of comfort he misses from home. It sticks to his skin and carves mementos in his heart and inks a feeling into his blood that warms him from marrow to flesh.

It’s the only place he thinks to drag Liam too, in the height of traffic, through the haze of the morning and the permeation of the sun on their backs. His booth, with the fully-stocked sugar container and his name written in permanent marker in a corner of one of the seats, sits close to a window that gives him a view of the streets and the people passing and the streamline sky that sits weightless above them.

Zayn watches Liam soak his tea in milk and honey, too sweet for his own liking but he thinks it suits this boy with eyes a glittered rust color under this morning light, round cheeks that lift a little higher with his dopey smile. Long, ink-smudged fingers stretch across the table, spin the salt shaker between them and Zayn wonders how _incredible_ — it’s the only word he can think of — they would be against his skin beneath a London sunrise. He shades his blush in the collar of his leather jacket, kicks at Liam’s foot under the table for the almost shameless grin he offers up and strays his eyes away from Liam’s face, the way his skin is the color of raw, uncultured honey.

He pretends that he’s merely doing Liam a favor by sitting here with him, repaying him for the coffee from earlier and the way this goofy boy makes his heart thrum from a low timbre to an uninhibited roar in this small diner.

“Would you rather be,” Liam starts and Zayn smiles automatically.

Its how he begins almost all of their most pointless conversations, between sketching and blocking, just before Zayn starts on a painstaking scene or when he’s unsure of himself while adding details to a new villain. It’s a diversion and an illusion, with his wide smile and crinkled eyes, the stretch of his mouth.

Liam takes a quick sip, flicking up an eyebrow at Zayn that spills a laugh from between chapped lips.

“Just say it, man,” Zayn teases, kicking Liam’s ankle under the table.

The cook spouts out a few orders loudly, dishes clatter from the kitchen, and something sweet, unfamiliar hums off the jukebox in the background – _oh, our igloo house is bigger now we made each brick of ice like stone_.

“Would you rather be,” Liam smiles, sugary and uncompromised before finishing, “Wolverine or Nightwing?”

Zayn snorts, sipping into his coffee. The taste is implausible over his tongue but it seems dulled, muted to the sight of the lines around Liam’s eyes, the anticipation in his grin.

“Wolverine,” Zayn says quickly, sniffing at the way Liam’s eyes go wide. “’s easy, mate. Healing factor.”

“But what about the cool toys, dude? C’mon,” Liam whines, knocking his elbows on the table and leaning in. “It’s _Dick Grayson_.”

Zayn laughs quietly, shaking his head. “No way. Wolverine would slaughter him, babe. The claws.”

“Bullshit,” Liam snickers, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Nightwing is too quick.”

Zayn shrugs, adding a little more sugar to Liam’s tea when he makes a face at the first sip. “Cheap tricks, Li.”

“But the Batman connection,” Liam groans, knocking Zayn’s hand away when he dumps too much in. They share a quick smile and Liam swallows down some of the tea with a pleased noise, grinning around the lip of his mug.

“Wouldn’t need it,” Zayn declares, swirling around his coffee and he doesn’t shove Liam away when he drips a little cream in his cup. He catches Liam’s fingers around the sugar shaker, fumbling out a smile before shaking his head.

“And the guy is super smart, Zee, I’m telling you,” Liam argues, his thumb stroking over Zayn’s knuckles before he pulls back like a shock. Faded strands of pink stripe his cheeks and he tucks his chin into the collar of his button up before sighing. “He went to Gotham University.”

Zayn giggles, their ankles knocking and brushing. He closes his eyes around a breath of coffee, the scent overwhelming and calming, even when Liam’s knee nudges his under the table.

“Wouldn’t need it,” he repeats roughly, batting his eyes open on Liam’s awed expression. It’s dizzying but his spine loosens when Liam slouches down in his seat, wedging a knee between Zayn’s and bumping a couple of Zayn’s fingers with his own on the table.

“It’s all about the healing factor, dude,” Zayn promises, his lips going crooked at the hinted smile Liam’s trying to hide behind a menu.

“Idiot,” Liam snickers, turning to watch the sun wash over the streets and flicker glitter off the surrounding buildings.

Zayn scratches at his stubble, fiddles with the zip on his jacket while his fingers sketch out Liam’s profile on the table. His heart stutters on the _‘we were children, now we’ve grown’_ echoing from the jukebox and there’s an urge underneath his skin to learn the shape of Liam’s jaw without looking. There’s a scrambled need to stitch Liam’s tendons over a blank paper, add a cowl and a lengthy cape, maybe some shadowing for his scruff and a boyish definition to his cheeks to mark his innocence behind a superhero costume –

And it’s the first time his hands have trembled with _anticipation_ and _inspiration_ in too long.

“Would you rather be Catwoman or – “

“Catwoman,” Zayn says instantly, the rush of his heart steeping his cheeks pink when Liam laughs.

“But you didn’t let me finish,” Liam cries, shoving at Zayn’s hand and tickling thick fingers across the veins on the back of it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Zayn giggles, twisting his hand around until the tips of their fingers glide over each other and the static between them infuses him with dopamine. “Always Catwoman.”

He learns the texture of calloused tips and the little imprints in Liam’s skin and the press of a smile to Liam’s mouth quakes the _yes_ beneath his bones before stirring the adjectives – _indecent, inescapable, underestimated, adorable_ – between his tongue and teeth.

Zayn whispers _‘innovative’_ instead of any of the others because Liam sneaks his fingers between Zayn’s to brush their bones while sipping his tea and straying his eyes to the low frequency of light behind a few choice buildings across the street.

Liam chases an exhale with a small smile, still studying the contrast between blue and gold outside before saying, “I always thought it’d be cool to be the Flash. I dunno, I just – I thought I’d be a well speedster.”

Zayn’s nose wrinkles with his laugh and he jettisons Liam’s fingers for a two-handed grasp of his mug. “Barry or Wally?” he challenges, cloaking his smirk with a lift of his cup and a lowering of his brow.

“How do you know so much,” Liam teases, fumbling a smile that’s angled goofily but seeps unintentional adoration into Zayn’s airways. “You’re like some super genius. A mastermind.”

Zayn shakes his head quickly, swallowing coffee too swiftly to make room for the laugh crowding his mouth.

“You are,” Liam argues with a scrunched brow. “You’d be like, I dunno, the super genius villain in a comic. Always fooling the hero with his whit or summat.”

One of his eyebrows quirks at Liam, his tongue sliding gently over his lips to lick away the salty coffee and the smile that follows. “S’ppose you’d be the hero. Always the fit lads, innit?”

It’s meant as a tease but it sways like a chat up and this space is too open for Zayn to hide the flush of his cheeks.

Liam leans over the table, shamefully buoyant and mischievous with his grin, with knuckles that brush against Zayn’s just to nick his coffee.

“You think I’m _fit_?” he stutters out, blowing on the coffee before taking a healthy gulp.

“I think it’d be sick to be Guy Gardner,” Zayn counters, pushing back the stiff ends of his hair while averting his eyes to the window. He tries to think of water colors and painting this street into his own comic – a refuge for the hero when the city doesn’t need saving.

He bites at his lip, flicking his vision toward Liam again to add, “For the ring and for the leather jacket, of course.”

Liam nods slowly, soaking in more coffee. “Of course,” he repeats under the choired voices from the jukebox that echo Zayn’s thoughts in a harmony of ‘ _nobody knows how loud your heart gets cause we’re a million miles away but I still hear you’_ that plays on a loop in his ears.

“Oi, when Pheebs told me my little bro was in, I didn’t want to believe the twit but I suppose I owe her an apology or summat.”

Liam absolutely freezes at the sound of a joyful voice and Zayn blinks away from him instead of at him, schooling his grin when his favorite waitress with her platinum blonde hair, large, large eyes, and hiked up grin sidles up to the booth.

He tilts his head at her and he’s more than a little shocked at how much her round eyes remind him of Liam and how soft her cheeks are like –

 _Oh_.

“Hey Roo,” Liam says shyly, inching fingers away from Zayn’s and everything strong and courageous about him disappears beneath his collar and the color of his cheeks.

Ruth gives him a once over, shameless about her teasing smirk before she smacks his arm with a menu. “Manners, Payne, have some pride,” she chides playfully with a hand propped on her hip. She turns a little to Zayn, eyes widening. “And you didn’t tell me you were with Malik. He’s my favorite late-night stopover. Christ, Leeymo, how lucky are you.”

Liam ducks into the booth while Zayn straightens his shoulders, offering up a sideways grin for her while trying to catch glimpse of Liam’s flushed cheeks in the peripheral.

“Hey Ruth,” he says in a rasped voice, charm apparent.

There’s a cheekiness to her smile, tucking loose strands of blonde hair behind her ear before pulling a notepad from her back pocket.

“I thought you were working the night shifts, Roo,” Liam inserts, still huddled in a corner of his side of the booth. He’s twisting the salt shaker between his fingers, tapping his foot to some Frank Sinatra cover.

“Picked up a few extra shifts during the day to pay for my trip home next month for your _surprise_ birthday party,” Ruth sighs, cornering a piece of her bottom lip with her teeth like Liam does.

Zayn sees it in her cheeks, in the shape of her eyebrows, the way she holds her jaw and this serendipitous calm about her that he can’t quite name. She’s so much of Liam, even in the nervous flex of her fingers.

“And don’t you dare tell mummy I told you about it, either,” she warns with a stern look and a pointed pencil.

Liam holds his hands up in surrender, a quick gesture of crossed fingers like a promise before she grins at him.

“Such a puppy, my love,” she coos and he groans pitifully before ducking back down into the booth.

“Go away,” he whines but there’s nothing serious or malicious about his tone. It’s sticky with affection and his eyes crinkle just a little when he cackles at her pouted lips.

There’s a thoughtful glimmer that crosses her face, almost too quick for Zayn to pick out, before she beams down at Liam and winks at Zayn.

“Wait, Malik is the lad you’ve been going on about? The one you’re studying under?” Ruth exclaims, leaning in and crimson spills across Liam’s skin, pinks his ears, stains his neck and collarbone a brilliant mixture of hues. He begs her off silently with his eyes but Zayn quirks an eyebrow and shifts to face Ruth with interest.

“Roo, _please_ – “

“I’m such an idiot,” Ruth interrupts, waving him off. She smirks at Zayn, her dimples pronounced and she’s half-leaning on the table when she adds, “I should’ve known you were somebody. Always spilling in here after midnight to draw at this table for hours like a Uni brat studying art courses. You’re pretty big here, with that comic book of yours.”

Zayn erases the smugness from his grin, folds his hands on top of each other. He feels Liam’s foot nudge his ankle under the table, a sweet _‘told you so’_ that Liam’s been trying to echo in his head for weeks but, somehow, it doesn’t seem real.

His accomplishments, his longevity, that stupid comic series that he draws but hasn’t been in love with since the start and its small following.

It’s just an _in-the-meantime_ until –

“And to think you’re the mate my little Li has been going on and on about for weeks now. It’s one thing to worship the ground you march on,” Ruth starts and Liam groans a little too loudly, dragging his sweaty palms over the sleek surface of the table, “but to think my sporty little bro, who has had his choice of birds I tell you, actually wants to chat you up and – “

“Roo, _stop_ ,” Liam moans, his voice strangled and childlike.

Zayn doesn’t startle or squirm or shudder at the sound but he keeps his eyes focused on Ruth for the flush of her cheeks, the way her eyes smile wider than her lips. His knee nudges Liam’s beneath the table, a secret he’s sure to keep for the ragged sound of Liam’s breathing and the way his fingers keep time with the music in the background – _and I’m going, going, going to get you_.

“Nothing to be ashamed of pup,” Ruth admonishes but her tone is sweet, evaporated mocking making room for adoration in thick waves.

“I’m not,” Liam whispers and it’s half believable with the lift of his brow and the roundness of his mouth.

Ruth shrugs, turning back to Zayn. “Besides, Li, don’t let this bloke with the pretty hair and fancy ink fool you. He’s a complete lightweight.”

Zayn squeaks out a sound of discontent, curling his fingers over the slick surface of the table until they bunch into fists. There’s an unanswered plea in his eyes before Ruth giggles.

“Hasn’t told you about the nights he and his little cheeky friend with the sassy mouth stumble in here half-drunk off their arses from vodka bombs down on Westfield?” Ruth teases, fluttering her eyelashes like the definition of innocence is within her grasps. She arches a high eyebrow, tapping the end of her pencil on the table top. “This one here doesn’t do well with his alcohol, mind you. Usually sticks to Cokes and strawberry milkshakes.”

Zayn retaliates immediately at Liam’s stuttered laugh with a kick under the table that knocks over the pepper shaker and dislodges the napkin holder. He does his best to hold his scowl but the softness around Liam’s cheeks, the lines around his smile, the narrow slits that filter out honey-colored eyes beckons something sweeter across his brow and lips and he’s sighing out a laugh with Liam.

“See Li,” Ruth hums, leaning in again, “every superhero has a weakness.”

She scrubs a few knuckles over Liam’s head, pats at his beating cheeks before pocketing her notepad and refilling Zayn’s coffee. “The usual Malik?” she inquires while setting out utensils and fixing the collar of Liam’s shirt, a dotting sister in her prime.

Zayn nods immediately, dragging a few knuckles over the crimson of his own cheeks. He lets his thumb nip along the stubble staining his jaw, breathing in the intoxicating scent of pancakes and orange juice and early lunch specials.

“Trying something new today, babe?” Ruth asks, half-turning toward Liam with a quick wink.

“I never do,” Liam panders back, tripping over his own smile when she sighs.

“Live a little kid, I swear,” she teases, knocking her hip against the table before walking off.

Liam ducks his head instantly, an amused smirk floating over his carnation lips when he steals the sugar to add to Zayn’s coffee – and he refuses to argue, even when Liam’s eyelashes flutter sweetly and he produces the kind of impish smile that Zayn hates on almost everyone.

 _Almost_ because Liam’s starting to feel like an exception and fit into spaces far too small for such beauty.

But Zayn can’t focus on that and he succeeds in looking away when Liam stirs his coffee, taking a small sip for the taste.

“I’m sorry,” Liam mumbles when the silence drags for minutes too long, absently nudging Zayn’s knee and dancing fingers over the rough denim of his jeans around the same area. There’s a halfhearted snort before he adds, “About my sister, I mean. I don’t mean for you to be uncomfortable and it’s really not like that. I don’t assume that you like – well, y'know. It’s not like _that_.”

Zayn swallows back a discontented sound, pressing his lips tightly together instead. He sniffs at his coffee before taking a swallow.

“I mean, I really do like admire your stuff,” Liam says quickly, like his precious words were offensive or misinterpreted.

Zayn smiles, shaking his head. “I like lads,” he says softly, eyes on the black, almost rust color of his coffee instead of Liam. “If that’s what you’re getting at, I mean. And I’m not bothered by it, if you’re wondering.”

“Right,” Liam says around a swallow, nodding leisurely. “I just didn’t want you to think I was – “

“I don’t assume,” Zayn corrects him, his voice coated serious. He clears his throat, another gradual sip of the coffee warming his muscles. “But I date lads. S’okay.”

He doesn’t add the _‘just not company lads’_ or _‘redtags’_ or anything else because Liam looks so earnest and he’s so fond of that amused grin and those cautious eyes. His fingers sneak under the table, scratch over Liam’s until the touch doesn’t burn as brightly and he tries not to let his heart skip a beat when Liam gently tangles their fingers for a brief second, thumbs brushing intermediately at the rhythm of the music.

Zayn waits until the silence is too thick and they haven’t look at each other for too many minutes before he grins. “Would you rather be Tim Drake or,” Zayn pauses, drags out the last word until Liam lifts his eyes from the window, “Damien Wayne?”

Liam chews the flecked up skin from his bottom lip, scrunching his nose.

“What’s the difference again?”

Zayn gasps and looks appalled until Liam laughs, a sound that echoes as he tips down into the slippery leather of the seat. He’s tactical about reaching across the table to smack Liam’s arm, nearly knocking over his second cup of coffee and carelessly scratching dull nails over Liam’s scalp.

“Fucking idiot,” he mutters against the backbeat of Liam’s giggles and Liam nudges their knees together, out of rhythm and catching Zayn off guard in the most brilliant way.

It’s a cheap trick, the way Liam finds his fingers again under the table but Zayn feigns discontent until Liam scratches out a _‘Bruce Wayne, always Bruce’_ with his thumb and his eyes. It softens the pull of muscle in Zayn’s arm and he stretches his fingers a little further to rub at Liam’s knuckles and pretends the rules don’t exist.

 

//

 

“We are quite literally the most boring lads in all of London, I reckon,” Louis sighs, the words amiss with hiccups and half-serious expressions. “And _pathetic_. I think that’s a lovely word, don’t you?”

Zayn laughs, a teetering sound that bounces from giggle to snicker, while carding charcoal and paint-stained fingers through Louis’ soft hair. “You’re drunk, Tommo.”

“’m not,” Louis slurs, tossing a hand over his mouth to cover the hiccup. “Maybe a bit.”

Zayn nods, adjusting Louis’ head in his lap and the shadows of the night soak the room in warm greys, silvery blacks that are chased by blues from the telly and crescent-shaped whites from the moon. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table, knocks the fringe from Louis’ forehead, and skips scenes on _the Dark Knight_ until he finds one with the Joker in it. His flat is warmed by the summer heat from the open window and the ceiling fan ticks a steady beat he patterns his breathing to while Louis counts the stars above his head and wiggles his toes into the fabric of the couch.

“What other lads that you know spend their entire Saturday nights like this?” Louis challenges, trying to muster authority with his voice but it’s choked off by the alcohol and the smile he gives away when Zayn laughs.

“We are quite unique,” Zayn tells him, still watching the television while his spare hand lazily sketches out a devious smile on a used sheet of his tablet.

There’s doodles around the border of the page – Violator’s symbol, the Voltage Comics emblem, half-finished villains he wants to add to the series but he’s still waiting on approval from the suits in charge. He finds himself laying out broad strokes for the outline of a space monkey and, no, it doesn’t flicker a smile over his lips but it sits heavy on his tongue and his fingers itch for his phone and a quick text message to Liam for the heat that’ll run through his veins when he responds.

The scene changes and he shifts Louis higher up on his thighs, sweeping his thumb over Louis’ forehead until the sweat from a night under this moon dries.

“You stood me up tonight, Zaynie. You were supposed to come to the company function,” Louis whines, shutting his eyes on the soft breeze that slips in through the window. He shivers and grins before attaching, “What was it for again?”

“I think for the film deal we just picked up for a few of the comics,” Zayn says casually, studying the broad red streaks across Heath Ledger’s face, the nuances in his expressions.

“Right!” Louis shouts, wincing a little from the reverb. “You should’ve been there. Who knows, they could turn Violator into a real life action blockbuster or summat, I think.”

“Not happening,” Zayn laughs, stroking his fingers along the shape of Louis’ skull. “Silly dreams.”

Louis sighs dejectedly, drawing up his knees until his toes press into the arm of the couch.

“Spoiled brat,” he counters, swatting away Zayn’s hand for a moment before moaning at the retreat. “Harry was a much better date.”

Zayn quirks an eyebrow when Louis peaks an eye open and the stain of red across his cheeks is enough for Zayn to snort and return his hand to its previous position. He watches Louis fiddle with the still done up buttons of his shirt, flicking the ones on his waistcoat open before he snuggles into the wedge between Zayn’s thighs. His lips look sticky-sweet from those lime mojitos he loves with the chunky rock candy sugar that’s slicked around the rim of his glass.

“Still invested in that?” Zayn wonders, tilting his head to watch the uneven exchange between Bruce and Rachel.

Louis licks at his lips and does his best to shrug noncommittally but it comes across rushed and unbalanced like he’s pushing down all of the tension, the sparks of something brighter just beneath the first few layers of skin.

“Progress has been made,” Louis admits, mussing his own hair with the frustration that synthesizes itself in his fingers.

“Really?”

Louis groans, the corners of his mouth helplessly turning upward. “I managed to get him to sit with me all night, ‘kay? And I bought him drinks.”

Zayn smirks, loosening the tangle Louis’ fingers have in his hair.

“And he _pretended_ ,” Louis attaches air quotes for the fuck sake of it, “to be interested in me when that twit Catherine came ‘round. Thank goodness Calder didn’t catch onto all of it.”

“Because that would be horrendous,” Zayn teases, tickling his fingers down Louis’ cheek, across the flushed expanse of his neck until they slip along the sweat pooled at his collarbone.

“Stop using such big words,” Louis protests, shutting his eyes on the explosions across the screen. “And it wouldn’t be awful, just – “

“The Eleanor Factor, right?” Zayn dubs it, grinning down at him.

Louis nods slowly, shuffling his bare feet on the fabric and blindly reaching for the bottle of water he stumbled in with. Zayn carefully tips his head back and feeds him a mouthful that dribbles down his chin and soaks the top of his shirt.

“Did you like him or are you just looking for a cheap shag?” Zayn asks sincerely.

Louis looks thoughtful, decisive in ways he’s never unless he’s with Zayn. He’s quick, unfiltered, _shameless_ about almost everything but when it’s just them – when the world collapses behind the barriers and their fortress remains intact, Louis is human.

He’s honest.

He’s vulnerable, even if he doesn’t quite understand the definition.

“Both,” he admits, lips quirking upward. “But I do enjoy the little shit’s company if that matters.”

“It always does,” Zayn tells him, stroking his hair and waiting until the wind catches a nice howl outside before unfastening a few more buttons on Louis’ shirt so his skin can breathe.

“I looked sharp tonight,” Louis pouts to divert their thoughts, dismiss his last few words because it’s a secret Louis doesn’t admit aloud. He never likes anyone. No one except Zayn and Zayn figures that’s by default because he’s the only one who actually tolerates Louis.

“Gangsta, mate, I’m sure.”

“Harry said so,” Louis whispers, his tongue loose and his eyes wandering over the ceiling. His fingers scratch over Zayn’s legs, beneath the cuff of his rolled up jeans, across his bare ankle. “He said I looked nice.”

Zayn smirks, leans down to press a sloppy kiss to Louis’ forehead. He sneaks fingers beneath Louis’ collar to stroke bone, trace out the ink across his chest and braves the way Louis’ heart stutters when he adds, “I can’t wait for that idiot to go away or actually stops taking a piss at my hormones.”

“’s not so bad, right?” Zayn teases, his voice lower than the muted volume of the telly. He smiles down at Louis, waits until he licks the remaining sugar from his lips.

“Not at all,” Louis mutters back, his brow lifted and his smile far from placating.

Zayn pats the smile from his face with a soft palm and laughs openly at Louis’ dreamy eyes until Louis smacks at his arm and tosses out a quick _‘are you quite finished’_ to match.

“And you?” Louis wonders in that singsong voice that threatens to mean more than just playful banter. He curls his fingers around Zayn’s wrist, determined, and Zayn flushes for no reason at all other than the race of his heart and the greyed image of Liam’s smile in his head.

“Nothing at all, mate.”

“Bullshit,” Louis argues, shuffling higher on Zayn’s thighs. “You have _rules_ , Malik, don’t you lie. You’re not getting caught up in some intern kid because – “

“I am not,” Zayn clarifies, conviction biting at his words and _he’s not_.

Not at all.

Not even if something breaks in his blood and soaks his nervous system and dilutes the pressure on his lungs.

“Good. You don’t do relationships well,” Louis states, closing his eyes happily when Zayn flips him off.

“Fuck off, I’m just showing him the ropes,” Zayn laughs, stilling the hummingbird rhythm of his heart and the heat of his cheeks is vile. It’s embarrassing is what it is and he refuses to admit anything feels warmer than the notion of Liam replacing Louis in his lap, tilted head with crooked grin and a pair of crinkled eyes and –

He shudders, focuses on the action onscreen rather than the way his fingers grip his charcoal pencil and scribble out nonsensical words about space monkeys and _‘why do we fall.’_

“You, my dear lad, are a _how-not-to_ when it comes to dating,” Louis adds with a curvy grin.

Zayn rewards him with another middle finger and pushes the thoughts aside because he’s not pursuing something as stupid as that anyway. But his fingers reach between the couch cushions, rewarded by his phone buried between the fabric, and he doesn’t scroll through countless names for anyone particular – except he does.

“Brilliant way to spend a Saturday,” Louis sighs, nuzzling closer to Zayn’s other hand and Zayn remains silent while thumbing a few words he hopes he doesn’t regret in the morning:

_hey what are you doing tmmrrw? maybe a film @ my flat?? dc or marvel your choice! aha xx_

He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until it escapes his lungs from the vibration against his palm three whole seconds later.

_Im batman!!! sure – Leeyum_

He’s certain he’ll regret every second of this in the morning.

 

//

 

Instead of _the Dark Knight Rises_ , like he’s expecting, Liam slips in the animated _Batman: Year One_ film that’s so obscure Zayn doesn’t have it in his collection and tugs Zayn down onto the couch between the wedge of the cushions with an arm around Zayn’s nervous shoulders and a bowl of popcorn balanced on their touching thighs. He can admit it’s not half-bad, to himself not Liam because he’s still skeptical of Liam’s taste in almost everything but he gives reverences to the animators’ style and the choice in dialogue and the way the story interweaves so many things he remembers from the graphic novel that it’s a bit overwhelming.

Liam’s got his sock-covered feet – high top trainers abandoned by the door, along with his cardigan and copy of _the Avengers_ , just in case of course – propped up on the coffee table, the outside of a foot brushing Zayn’s bare arch provisionally. His thighs jump in time to the words and his fingers flex across his legs like he can’t contain this energy and Zayn’s a little more in love with the tug on the corners of his mouth rather than the excitement that circles his eyes. There’s cold mugs of saturated tea by their feet and it’s not until midway through the film that Zayn notices the way Liam’s thumb keeps stroking over that empty stretch of skin on his bicep like he’s mapping out the next tattoo –

And Zayn thinks he’d let Liam do it. He’d let Liam hold the needle and ink his skin with that stupid space monkey, too large eyes and obscure expression and Zayn would hold his breath while Liam added color, details he couldn’t depict with the Sharpie.

Zayn balances his sketchbook on his spare thigh, never adding much more than half-strokes to Violator’s face, trivial attempts at drawing capes and costumes again just for the pressure his pencil puts against the paper. He leaves half of the lights on in his flat, except in the living room where the cool blues, silent purples, stray remnants of the night stroking greyscale models of luminosity across their faces and clothes. He doesn’t light those fancy candles Louis loves or bother with delicious takeaway from that Japanese restaurant down the street but he hides his soiled clothes in an unused hamper, sprays hints of Louis’ left behind cologne in the air to absorb some of the boyish aroma that filters from the walls.

There’s a loop of old Robin Thicke in the background, with promises of _‘I’m lost without you, can’t help myself how does it feel to know that I love you baby’_ slipping through the dark of the room, and Liam laughs openly when he steals the remote to rewind a scene.

“You’re missing a _pivota_ l,” Zayn groans at the perfect usage of the word, that unguided tongue, “scene in the film, you donut. Pay attention.”

Zayn can’t admit aloud that he’s more than slightly distracted by the way the glow of the television plays along Liam’s cheekbone, the sway of the muted colors against his jawline or the way the shadows hum gospels off his collarbone because the collar of his stupid Injustice League shirt slopes a little too low. He hides his smile – and half of his inconsistent blushing – in the fog of dark hues, dragging nervous fingers through his hair until Liam knocks them away.

“Don’t,” he whines, nudging Zayn with an elbow, “I kind of like it that way.”

Zayn rolls his eyes but still reminds himself, constantly, to never add too much product to his hair again for the way it stands up but still looks so soft to Liam.

“It’s not really that important,” Zayn argues for the way it absolutely diverts Liam’s attention from his face. He swallows pride and knocks their knees together before adding, “It’s just a massive gang of people trying to beat up Bruce – “

“It’s a turning point,” Liam interjects but Zayn merely tosses a handful of popcorn at him.

He slouches further into the cushions – and closer to Liam, not that it’s deliberate – before lazy fingers stroke out a broken Batman symbol on Liam’s exposed forearm. “You like it because of Selina Kyle,” he deduces, shivering out a laugh when Liam blushes and turns away. “But the more important part is when Gordon finally stands up to Detective Flass.”

Liam tilts his head observantly, grinning unceremoniously at Zayn until the lights from the background and the television swallow him up in a cinematic glow. Zayn’s heart stutters on teenage hormones and unwilling emotion and he knows he’ll never catch the angle of Liam’s face in the right way if he ever tries to recreate this image on paper but he thinks he’d tried.

Fuck, he’d tried so hard.

“Now fuck off and let’s get to the good stuff,” Zayn snickers, stealing the remote back but Liam’s reflexes are quicker and they’re knocking over the popcorn and kicking back the coffee table as they fight for control.

It’s inappropriately clinical, the way their foreheads bump and they cascade across the couch and Liam presses with enough momentum to propel Zayn onto his back with his thighs caught around Liam’s hips. The shadows catch them before they fall and Liam’s breathing is erratic above him but it’s not enough of a distraction to the way his eyes are blown or the tremble of his hips or that _almost desperate_ taunt around his mouth. A few of his fingers are sneaking up Liam’s spine, counting out the vertebrae and Liam’s not shoving down against him but the strain of his muscles from propping himself up shows in the flex of his arms and his hips hitch once involuntarily when Zayn stutters out a breath.

“I’m sorry,” Liam mumbles and Zayn swears it’s for their positioning but that’s quickly rectified when Liam leans in, clumsily and quick, and presses his lips to Zayn’s.

It’s errant, far too unpracticed to be planned, and Zayn keeps his eyes open when Liam’s flutter shut. Liam’s firm with his rhythm and the shock lasts too long for Zayn to be calculated with his retaliation but he revels in the moan that slides past Liam’s lips when he kisses back for a second. He pushes up when Liam sinks down onto his elbows, his firmer body creating a cocoon around him and their lips move in time to the music rather than their thoughts.

His fingers scrape along the back of Liam’s head when Liam kisses him like he’s writing poetry to his lips. They find a rhythm they can breathe against and it scares Zayn. It stops his muscles, strains his chest, and Liam’s tongue licks salt from the popcorn and sweet from the tea against his lower lip in an unrivalled echo.

“I think,” Zayn murmurs stupidly, pushing at Liam’s shoulder rather than dragging him closer, “I think we should stop.”

Liam draws back reluctantly but he’s nodding like he understands. The pad of his thumb caresses the corner of Zayn’s mouth and, no, it’s not at all _paralyzing_ except Zayn can’t do anything but stare at Liam’s swollen lips and the dark of his eyes and the slow fall of his brow.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, sheepish and suddenly he’s that same boy from the first day.

Zayn shuts his eyes to burn away the image and dilutes the moan from his lips when Liam’s hips shift, an unhealthy amount of blood rushing into his cock until it twitches and brushes awkwardly against Liam’s thigh.

“It’s just that,” Zayn sighs, shoving his hair back and ignoring Liam’s protest. “I have rules, man. I know better.”

Liam’s nodding when his eyes part, chewing that bruised lip like a child. He can’t help the way he drags his knuckles over the side of Liam’s head, across the crown, down to the nape of his neck before Liam can settle his own fingers there.

“I get it – “

“You don’t,” Zayn swears, his voice wavering and, when he was sixteen, this was much easier – calling off a snog session because his mum might walk in or because he didn’t want to be the first one to come with clothes still on and a knee brushing his fattened cock through his chinos.

He swallows, watches the stretch of Liam’s birthmark across his neck and misses the part where Liam leans back in.

There’s no string of words or exclaimed objections when Liam brushes their mouths together again. He doesn’t side with reason or common logic, not when Liam’s tongue licks away the crippled doubt or when his fingers curl across Liam’s neck to haul him closer this time.

Liam’s new to this, Zayn can tell, but he kisses like he’s making promises to be _better_ and there’s such unharnessed potential in the flow of his lips, the way he uses his tongue like a typhoon. It’s an onslaught of fingers across Zayn’s ribs, over the ink stained across his collarbones, down to his hips to drag them up and against Liam’s. Liam’s teeth scrape gently over the stretched tendons of his neck and his lips do their best to mark up Zayn’s skin in the most polite way. His nervous hands push at the button of Zayn’s jeans and drag the zip down enough that when Zayn grinds up, the material slides down.

He catches half of a scene through a haze of blurry colors and unsteady vision when Liam licks out a message over his neck, swiping across his Adam’s apple like _‘just wait it gets better’_ until Zayn feels restless. His bones thrive and the blood pools in unknown territory and Liam rucks his still trapped cock against Zayn’s thigh until he sneaks a hand between them to trace out the shape.

“ _Oh_.”

The gasp catches in the wind like hidden fireflies and Liam smiles against his neck, a little abashed but so smug when he rolls his hips to press his cock to Zayn’s hip this time.

“You did that,” Liam mumbles into Zayn’s skin and Zayn turns his head just enough to catch Liam’s lips before he says something stupid.

He knows there’s a proper term for this – _dry humping_ seems immediate, but _frottage_ sounds academic – but none of that seems to matter when he peels the flaps of Liam’s jeans open after fumbling with the complicated zip and the friction from their cocks rubbing through silk and cotton catapults his kisses into foreign galaxies. He’s far from patient or mature, scratching at Liam’s neck and tangling fingers into his shirt but Liam’s purposeful about his grinding. He’s magic, sleight of hand evident when his thumb rubs just beneath the head of Zayn’s cock, palm flush to the shaft and veins. It’s a mask of illusions and Houdini-like mystery he’ll never try to replicate but he absolutely loves when the tip of Liam’s cock slips past the waistband of his boxers just so Zayn can peek down at the pink tip and pushed back foreskin.

“You’re ridiculous,” Zayn laughs, Liam staining the base of his neck with pinkish bruises he won’t see until later.

“You’re insane,” Liam giggles back, shivering when Zayn’s hands fits his waist between Zayn’s thighs and squeezes to keep Liam in place. “And so _addictive_.”

“Nice word choice,” Zayn teases, stroking the shell of Liam’s ear with his tongue.

“Knock it off, you donut,” Liam huffs but it’s just a cover up for the whine at the back of his throat when Zayn ruts his hips anti-clockwise and the dribble of precome that spits from the head and dampens Zayn’s briefs is a clear indication.

“Can’t,” Zayn heaves, eyes shut with his teeth biting mercilessly at his tongue. “You’re really good at this.”

Too good because Zayn’s an absolute wreck and his thighs ache and his hole pleads for lube, a condom, and slow penetration and the fog of his mind won’t silence the alarms in his head when Liam pushes down just enough to –

It’s not a whimper as much as it is a silent plea for a break but Liam can’t hear it over his own groans and Zayn goes completely still, swallows the taste of Liam’s name between his teeth and tongue before his hips buck up and he floods his briefs with come. He trembles and pinches a little too roughly at the skin on Liam’s forearm, biting down on his bottom lip until the copper taste rids his mouth of shame.

Liam cloaks him and kisses sweetly under his jaw, smiling with pride but devoid of that shameless arrogance Zayn knows any other lad would carry. Instead, he presses little anecdotes about Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne and Wayne Enterprises to Zayn’s skin and thumbs at the wet material on Zayn’s hip until he begs off.

“Fuck, I can’t believe,” Zayn gasps, eyes still shut, even though Liam’s petting his chin and angling his head until they’re lined up. “This is quite embarrassing.”

Liam smiles against his cheek, pressing a wet kiss there for reassurance Zayn’s certain he doesn’t warrant.

“’s a good thing I’m not looking for this to be perfect then,” Liam whispers, dragging the edge of his nose across Zayn’s jaw and Zayn wants to punch him.

He wants Liam to fucking shove off because _when did Zayn Malik start needing rescuing_?

“You’re an idiot, man,” Zayn hisses, fluttering his eyes open and he’s doing his best to remain stern but Liam looks unaffected and rushes Zayn’s already bruised lips with another kiss. Zayn pushes back but not out of disdain. Out of a sudden need to learn the softness of Liam’s eyes again. “Where the fuck are you from?”

“Wolverhamtpon,” Liam says matter-of-factly and Zayn’s only discouraged by his smile, not the lift of his eyebrows.

Liam laughs at him, drags the tight material of his jeans back over his hips but leaves them undone. He pushes thick fingers through Zayn’s hair and curls his spare ones around the nape of Zayn’s neck.

“I hate labels,” Zayn admits, sudden with his words. He flicks his tongue over his lips and he knows it’ll be a long time before he’s able to chase the taste of Liam’s mouth off of his. “I’m not good with calling myself and others something when, y’know, it’s not really definable. ‘s not me, man.”

Liam shrugs, nods along. He offers Zayn a look of indifference but Zayn can see through its thin veil. He can read it in the shift of his eyes, the curve of his spine but he lets Liam play the hero. He permits Liam to puff out his chest and be brave.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Liam says carelessly, wrinkling his nose. “Won’t be around long enough, anyways.”

Zayn nods back because it’s true. And he has rules.

He gives a small shove to Liam’s shoulder as if to say _‘get off me now’_ and Liam’s face flashes with a small pout before he shakes it off and grins helplessly. He moves to separate them and, only because of the damn pressure on his own chest from something vaguely foreign, Zayn wraps firm fingers around Liam’s wrist and pulls him back in. He tangles them together, linked limbs and wrinkled clothing and feet brushing off the arm of the couch, and waits until Liam stills enough to wrap his arms around Liam’s waist.

Liam smiles into his neck, traces uncertain fingers over the ink of Zayn’s half-sleeve and Zayn frowns into those buzzed hairs on his head until calloused fingers sneak between them to brush over the exposed flesh on Zayn’s belly. Zayn buries his grin away from the light of the telly and doesn’t remind Liam that this is meant to be meaningless.

He steals a kiss to Liam’s temple instead and waits until the pliant boy above him lets his breathing go even before closing his own eyes on the end credits of the film.

 

//

 

“So it was a date?” Louis asks and Zayn automatically – and _helplessly_ , he knows – responds with narrowed eyes and a curled set of fingers thumping Louis’ shoulder.

“It wasn’t a date,” he admonishes but he’s not sure if he’s convincing Louis or himself.

“A film, some popcorn,” Niall starts, a singsong voice that threatens to ruin Zayn’s cheeks with blush, even under the heavy early morning sun and the wisp of clouds that are coloring from grey to an almost pink. Niall grins around a mouthful of egg, bacon, and cheese on hot toast before adding, “And some snogging? Sounds like a date.”

“A _Harry Styles_ type of date,” Louis bemoans and neither of them willingly glare at Louis but they nudge him with their elbows for the fuck of it.

“It was innocent,” Zayn sighs, shoving Niall before his mouth can open but Louis’ right there with a lazy grin and scandalized eyebrows.

“Tell that to your soiled pants, mate,” Louis teases, wrapping a lethargic arm around Zayn’s already tense shoulders. “It was a fucking date and I’m quite proud of you for smashing it.”

“Not a date,” Zayn grumbles, still unsure and unwilling to seek out a definition he’s certain Google would provide.

“Provisionally speaking,” Niall begins and Louis chokes out a laugh that rackets through the London streets, amongst the traffic and the early morning business class and the vendors offering up spices and Colombian coffee.

“Crossword puzzles are doing you good, mate. I’m exceptionally proud,” Louis chides, reaching past Zayn to steal a few sips of Niall’s sandwich.

“Thanks arsehole,” Niall snorts and feeds Louis a few bites when he finishes. “But, really, Zayn Malik doesn’t date.”

“No, Zayn Malik doesn’t date _well_ ,” Louis corrects him with a shifted up eyebrow and three-quarters of a smile, nodding with a pointed finger at Niall. “There’s a difference.”

Niall hums his approval, taking a large chunk out of his breakfast sandwich and Zayn chooses not to remind them he’s wedged between their shoulders and can hear every word they’re saying.

“Speaking of hopeless situations,” Niall says, stretching his neck to look at Louis as they walk down side streets and busy sidewalks, “how is _that_ going?”

Louis flips him off but his lips twist so affectionately at Niall’s laugh before he settles on winking at him. “Been too busy with El to bother with him, actually. Entertaining her is quite complicated.”

“What’s complicated about buying her nice things and going down on her occasionally?” Niall wonders and Zayn frowns, not because Niall talks with his mouthful but for the mental image.

“It’s a bit more than that, thank you fucker,” Louis announces and none of them give enough mind to the idle stares they get when they pass a small group of formally dressed women. “She’s quite into chatting now. And telling me about school.”

“Fascinating,” Niall says in a teasingly tone that’s reminiscent of some host during a history documentary.

“Boring,” Louis sighs, tipping back more of Niall’s coffee. Zayn sips at his own, nudging Louis with an elbow and offering him an apathetic smile. Louis rolls his eyes instantly, adding, “Besides, the kid just follows me around most of the time while I get ready for presentations and seminars on financial statistics and business quota. He quotes off all of these brilliant ideas he has about _forward progression_ and ways to draw up more business for the comic company. The lad loves his Karl Marx and – “

“ _Who_?” Niall strains to ask, hiding the confusion behind a thick pair of Ray Bans and a rounded mouth.

Louis leans in, narrowing his eyes and poking a rough finger to Niall’s ribs, through his half-wrinkled button up.

“Aren’t you studying Literature or summat at that university of yours?” Louis asks with a hiss.

“Sociology,” Niall argues, shoving back. “I’ve got a course study in culinary arts too but don’t tell me dad. He’ll be expecting me to cook on my next visit.”

Zayn snorts into his coffee and the whine that slides from Louis’ lips echoes off the too close buildings down the alley.

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis declares a little liberally, with a defiant lift to his chin and a smile just south of smug. They take a left past a book shop that houses a giant cutout of Violator – and yes, Zayn _is_ shameful with his blush and the corners of his mouth quirk just a little – before Louis continues, “I might’ve won a date with him, anyways.”

Niall groans, making a face before draining the rest of his coffee. “Lou,” he starts, pushing up his sunglasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, “he’s not some celebrity you win a date with like in that one film. What was it? _The Devil Wears Prada_?”

Louis squawks with offense and Zayn nudges his hip against Niall’s before whispering, “ _Win a Date with Ted Hamilton_.”

“Exactly!” Niall barks out, laughing, and Louis’ sneer doesn’t match the noise in volume but length.

“Fuck off you invalid twit,” Louis hisses, curling his lip at Niall’s waggling eyebrows. “I convinced him to have dinner with me this Saturday. Something about a marketing dinner with some suits that will, conveniently, not be there.”

“So you lied,” Niall deadpans, dropping his Ray Bans and eyebrows simultaneously.

“Like you haven’t before,” Louis warns with a pointed finger. “Or are we to believe that twit from advertising – “

“Jade,” Zayn reminds him, bumping their shoulders when they make another left down an empty street.

“Jade,” Louis repeats with a heavy tongue wrapped around each letter, “actually went on a date with you because you started that rumor that you have a massive dick.”

“That, my dear Watson, is true,” Niall retorts, cheeks stained a soft crimson from the sun alone. His pale skin peeks out from rolled up sleeves and the half-done buttons on his shirt and his slim gray slacks still have a crease that’s only rivaled by his high top Jordan’s.

“You do not have a massive – “

“How do you know?” Niall shrieks and Zayn rubs the heel of his hand against the back of his eyes with a thin thread of patience keeping him quiet.

“Your cock is average and there’s too much foreskin,” Louis says flatly, eyebrows shooting up and daring Niall to argue. He doesn’t.

“But that’s not what makes you loveable,” Louis inserts with a gentle, far less mocking smile.

Niall sneaks a few fingers under the sleeve of Zayn’s varsity jacket, rubbing at skin already inked in dark colors and his thumb catching on that small stretch of space he let Liam doodle a Martian Manhunter on with a stiff-tipped Sharpie late into the night – the one strip of flesh Zayn refused, _refused_ to scrub clean in the shower this morning – and he knows they’re each other’s calm when the waves are too rough. They’re clean, fresh air when they’re locked in a tunnel of inescapable gravity.

“You should reduce all of the carbohydrates you’re eating daily and try adding a little less sodium to your diet,” Louis advises randomly, pointing at Niall and flicking up a questioning eyebrow at the way Niall grins back wolfishly. “Maybe add a bit more greenery to your daily intake. I can suggest some rather earthy teas and – “

“Shut up,” Niall laughs, straining past Zayn to shove at Louis’ shoulder. Zayn laughs into the hollows provided by Niall’s neck before he adds, “Bro, you’re falling. Hard. Massively.”

Louis trembles, his face wrinkled and cheeks pale. “How dare you insinuate – “

“Stealing Ni’s crossword puzzles,” Zayn snickers and the finger shoved between the slates of his ribs isn’t unwarranted but a bit unexpected.

“Fuck you,” Louis drags out but it’s without the harshness they both knows he’s intending.

“You were saying,” Niall says to segue the grin back to Louis’ lips and it’s the peace amongst the chaos they haphazardly create with each other.

“I don’t think it’s completely wrong to want to show that arsehole a good night in the city. I’ve already called up that one club you like Zayn,” Louis explains and Zayn snorts because he doesn’t love or _like_ any club in London, “and I made reservations for us at a posh restaurant. And I’ve had my flat cleaned.”

“You hired someone?” Zayn asks, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Leigh-Anne says she’s been saving that French maid’s uniform for you, I’ll have you know,” Louis declares with an acidic tongue and a chuffed grin.

Zayn groans and pushes him away just to dull the thunder of his laugh.

“I don’t want to be boring,” Louis fusses, wrapping a desperate arm around Zayn’s waist.

“Take the bloke to a McFly concert and buy him a green tea and I think he’ll blow your nuts off,” Niall shrugs.

 _Idiots_ , Zayn thinks but he can’t help his smile or the way he clings tighter to them.

“Besides,” Niall starts and there’s a saccharine smile pushing at his lips, dripped with affection and Niall’s cheeks pink before he finishes, “A good night in isn’t boring, bro. I invited Josh up for a marathon of _Family Guy_ and leftover pasta two weekends ago.”

“Did he blow you?” Louis inquires, shifting up an eyebrow while tugging at the sleeve of Zayn’s jacket.

“No, but I offered,” Niall replies, tipping his head back for the wash of the sun and the cool spearmint hue in the background. “He wanted to play a tourney of FIFA instead and I woke up wearing his boxers.”

“Cheeky,” Zayn snickers, elbowing Niall’s ribs and knocking their shoulders until Niall turns into an adolescent fit of laughter. “Very romantic, Ni.”

Louis groans, shoving fingers through his already product-stiff hair while the sun halos above them and the wind sweeps long, long arms of dewy air over their shoulders.

“I believe the proper word Zaynie,” Zayn jostles him with an elbow immediately because, “is _pathetic_. Dreadfully pathetic.”

Zayn shakes his head immediately and Niall uses all of his best stealth moves to sneak behind Zayn and pattern his feet to Louis’ steps before leaping onto his back, forcing Louis’ hands to reach back and cup Niall’s thighs to support him. They stumble all the way into the lobby of their building with immature rants and helpless laughter and the kind of smiles Zayn will never be able to dictate to paper, but he knows he’ll try.

He’ll try just for them.

 

//

 

Once a month, for a few days before a new issue of Violator comes out, Zayn steals away hours into the night at the office to work out a few last minute ideas and sketches the start of a new issue just to clear his head of the current storyline or drum to paint out wasted dreams into something that has become repetitive rather than pleasurable. He refills endless cardboard, recyclable cups of coffee and piles the corner of his desk with forgotten issues of vintage graphic novels to read between the nervous minutes. He hides in the shadows of unlit rooms and sketches out his favorite characters on empty desks with Sharpies and the world isn’t so large or heavy when the art room is lit only by his desk lamp, the glint of his own smile.

The skyline is always littered with tiny orbiting stars and large, thick cloaks of bluish-purple that turns almost black just before midnight, blanketing London in a habitual embrace that he adores. He stretches his arms across the back of that couch on the roof and lets July heat prickle small beads of sweat over his skin and the cars below move in a harmonic pattern that’s a little less of a hallucination as much as it is a siren’s call. There’s an unlit cigarette between his lips and the sleeves of his black Venom t-shirt are rolled up to his shoulders, exposing all of his ink and redefined muscles from the push-ups – no, he’s not actually _trying_ to impress anyone but maybe he likes the strain of his biceps while sketching and the little looks Liam gives him like his tongue is tempted to lick sweet saliva up his triceps – and he closes his eyes when the breeze brushes over his cheeks like a mother’s hand.

He grins at the moon, still too empty and shoved far into the background of the sky, before he considers abandoning this flat plane where the city lights spark upward and the streets look fluorescent and the buildings are compact houses to go back to his desk and finish that lethargic sketch of Mystique – vintage, not the scaly one from the films – he was practicing.

His bones thrive, his neck stretching until the heat melts over his skin, and there’s a unison of a few cars playing the same radio station and the buzz of the Arctic Monkeys all the way up with someone’s high beams mapping out a halo like the Bat signal on brick walls. Maybe it’s the pull of Alex Turner’s voice or the _‘I dreamt about you nearly every night this week. How many secrets can you keep? 'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat’_ but he thinks it’s the chunky guitars and dense sky with the gossamer clouds turning to light mist –

It’s the kind of distraction that blinds him to shadows on the ground and Converse pressing into the gravel and he catches the smile on Liam’s lips out the corner of his eye before he’s plopping down on the couch next to Zayn.

Thick fingers slip between his lips to steal the cigarette and a cold beer is shoved between free fingers, an almost identical, nervous smile on Liam’s lips like that playful one from the first day. There’s a cascade of almost invisible pinks on his cheeks and he stretches his neck, exposing that artwork of a birthmark, to look over Zayn’s shoulder at the swirls of inky black that collide with the purple in the sky.

“I convinced Haz to go on a date to the cinema with Lou,” he beams, swirling his tongue around the neck of his own beer bottle before tipping back for a swallow.

“How much he pay you?”

Liam shrugs, a mild attempt at a wink failing. “A tenner and the location of your secret hideout.”

“He diddled you mate,” Zayn laughs, but the sound isn’t mocking. It’s sweet and foreign and he hides it with a swallow of London Pride rather than a nervous smirk.

Liam giggles, that openly giddy one where his features scrunch and his muscles tingle and his shoulders tense up. It stings in the right kind of way all over Zayn’s senses, deep into his core, and he ruffles stray fingers over the buzz of Liam’s hair for the texture and not the way it calms everything else down.

The traffic roars like Saturday nights should and lights keeping dancing into the open space of the sky, the trance of a voice telling the world _‘ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? ‘cause I always do.’_ It strikes a matchstick smile on his lips, cigarette forgotten between the cushions, until Liam wedges their thighs together and taps idle fingers on Zayn’s leg to the thump of the bass.

“How’d you get the beer up?” Zayn wonders, lips wrapping around the neck of the bottle.

Liam watches him a little too long until they’re both blushing.

“Tenner,” Liam snickers, nudging at Zayn’s shoulder with a loosely wrapped fist. “And the rest of the pack. Security here is rather tame.”

“Just the night crew,” Zayn insists, admiring the glint off Liam’s lips from the sticky amber beer and his nervous tongue wetting them every six seconds.

He curls his fingers around the nape of Liam’s neck and watches the stars take flight like aircrafts on a mission. His thumb shifts over that almost too tight knob resting near that thick thatch of hair at the bottom of Liam’s neck and he strokes his own teeth over the little push of flesh on his bottom lip, swaying to the percussion and the _‘crawling back to you’_ in his ears.

They meander through chats about _All Star Comics_ , smiling secretly at each other when they moan over the Green Lantern film, Liam’s jittery thumb stroking the inside of Zayn’s thigh, fingers floating over the muscles of Zayn’s spread legs. Liam chews at his lip, eyes never diverting from Zayn’s face when he laughs about classic X-Men cartoons and he traces the flex of the muscles in Liam’s forearm while he talks Zayn through the _Messiah Complex_ mini-series. They trade nervous giggles and even more earnest fingers – the coil of Zayn’s fingers across Liam’s spine, the stroke of a thumb on Zayn’s hipbone where the thick heart inked to his skin is hidden, the expanse of relaxed shoulders – while the streets flood with a hypnotic, thick voice asking them _‘so have you got the guts? Been wondering if your heart’s still open and, if so, I wanna know what time it shuts.’_

Liam snickers with lips slick a coy pink from the beer, eyes dilated a half degree, and there’s a neat pool of sweat at his collarbone whenever he tips his head back. The moon reprints shadows under his jaw – and Zayn’s tongue itches to taste the skin there – and hovers an avenue of blue paint over his cheeks, across the stubble. His nose twitches and Zayn’s heart repeats _‘do I wanna know’_ over and over.

Thick fingers push back loose strands of Zayn’s inky black hair and Zayn shifts a little closer when Liam, a little softer now, talks about his family and his dog back home and why _‘London is beautiful but it’s just not Wolverhampton’_ until the thought sticks. Until Zayn wonders if Liam clicks his heels three times to get somewhere closer to home. It pushes an unfamiliar smirk to his lips and his fingers tremble across Liam’s throat when he leans back to swallow more beer.

“Cheers,” Liam giggles, a little vulnerable but so much more himself under Zayn’s fingers and imprinted stare.

Zayn grins, lips aching with the stretch, nodding the neck of his bottle at Liam before finishing his beer. He feels the heat of unsure fingers tracing the inseam of his jeans and knuckles brush the edge of his cock before quickly drawing back.

“M’sorry,” Liam mumbles, ducking his head, lowering his eyes for the first time in that awkward way that chills Zayn’s skin.

The heat swells and Zayn nudges his legs further apart before kicking at the curve of Liam’s shoe with his boot. He fits his fingers across strained tendons between neck and shoulder, beneath the collar, and blindly leans in until his nose nuzzles the sharp line of Liam’s jaw.

“Always so apologetic,” he says deep, darkly. He smiles across Liam’s flushed skin and his dull nails scratch Liam’s skin pinker. “What for?”

Liam swallows, the motion vibrating through Zayn’s fingers, before he whispers, “S’okay, right? This?”

Zayn shrugs, playing his cards face up. His knee knocks against Liam’s and he laughs into that dark spaces under Liam’s jaw, aesthetic tongue unconsciously prodding the skin.

“What’s _this_?” Zayn asks, dragging his nose up Liam’s chin, lips so close.

Liam shakes, a nervous twitch that tightens a laugh in Zayn’s chest, and their bottles clink along the gravel when they slips from their fingers. His eyes round like the dark side of Neptune but still shimmer like the gold he’s seen in pictures of Jupiter.

“’s matter,” Zayn teases, lips catching on the rim of Liam’s but he draws back until Liam inclines toward him. “No much experience with this?”

Liam shakes his head slowly, cheeks afire with something resembling summer-bloomed roses rather than the skyline of a London sunrise. But his fingers, confident and careful at once, drag up Zayn’s thigh and pull at the material of his shirt until their foreheads bump.

“Not with lads,” he admits, a shyness choking his speech but his tongue licks at his lips like something out a cheesy romance film, the lead character who’s building courage.

Zayn crawls a little closer, teeth scraping over Liam’s bottom lip until his shiver turns audible and Zayn smiles with long fingers pressing into the muscles of Liam’s neck for confidence.

“What have you done?” Zayn asks with a thicker accent, experienced fingers crawling beneath Liam’s shirt again.

“Kissed a dude,” Liam giggles, complex shades feathering across his face but they look so dim under a purple sky and even heavier stars. “This really fit lad who draws ace comics and sort of – “

Zayn snorts, kisses Liam soft and quiet for a second. “Your chat up lines are horrid, mate,” he tells Liam, lips painting every word over Liam’s mouth, grinning against the _‘do I wanna know if this feeling floats both ways’_ in his head.

“That’s it though,” Liam sighs but his hand squeezes Zayn’s thigh and spare fingers catch in Zayn’s hair, stilling like he’s waiting for permission.

Zayn mewls and presses into the touch and he lets Liam lead this kiss. He sinks into helplessness, its rare and modern definition, and flutters his eyelashes on Liam’s cheek when a tongue is applied in the most delicate but desperate way. He taste the honey from leftover tea under Liam’s tongue and there’s bitter alcohol mixed with peppermint sweets shoved into his mouth until Liam licks out a _‘please let me’_ across the roof of Zayn’s mouth.

Fingers tighten in his hair and Liam’s unfocused lips show their inexperience but he _tries_. Fuck, he gives all of his effort until Zayn moans back and stretches his neck to change the angle, ankles brushing as Liam floats with him. It’s not synchronized or smooth like some of Zayn’s best kisses but he thinks, unashamed, that it’s the kind of kiss he’s always wanted – pure and gradual and thought-provoking.

 _Impressive_ , he thinks until the streets roar louder with _‘that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day’_ and Zayn fights back with a practiced tongue and careful fingers guiding Liam’s jaw.

“Ever had a mate suck you off?” Zayn asks, forthright and his smile broadens when Liam echoes a choked whimper.

“No,” he replies shyly, his skin heating in the wake of Zayn’s intended touches. “Thought about it, but I just – “

Zayn shushes him with another kiss, laughing into Liam’s mouth while blind fingers push against the framework of Liam’s cock and work at the zip on his trousers.

It’s been awhile and Zayn thinks, belatedly, things such as this aren’t ever really forgotten but he shifts Liam back against the worn cushions of the couch with rough kisses and quick hands. He works his mouth against Liam’s throat, taps at his hips until Liam tilts them up before dragging down his jeans and pants, fingers curled into the waistband for strength. It’s a tight fit, on this beaten down couch with poor cushioning and far from sturdy structure, but he traps everything around Liam’s ankles and swings him around before sinking to his knees.

He licks away the chapped texture of his lips and bites along Liam’s hip. Liam’s cock sits heavy, throbbing and curved against his belly and Zayn mouths at the thick trail of hair that starts at the lip of his navel, licking away the stain of precome just south of his chin before curling fingers around Liam’s dick. Something happy and elated echoes in his throat when Liam shivers and fumbles fingers into his hair for alignment rather than control and he swipes his tongue over the slit for a soft reminder: _maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for someone new_.

His jaw moves on instinct and his lips close around the tip by memory. He swallows Liam down halfway without much effort – but the stretch of his lips and the foreskin over his tongue and the ache behind his teeth remind him that Liam’s much thicker than past lads. He slurps shamelessly for the effect and shuts his eyes on Liam’s soft whimper, tongue playing out half-notes of reverie on the underside. His throat swallows unconsciously as he sinks deeper, the flavor sharp and tangy but unforgettable.

“Zayn,” Liam squeezes out with free fingers digging into the cushions while the other ones scrape patiently over Zayn’s scalp. His knees shake around Zayn’s shoulders and his feet shuffle helplessly on the gravel until Zayn has to reach down and grip his own cock for the relief of pressure.

Zayn says something shameful around his cock, looks up through thick eyelashes for the reaction he gets – blown eyes and a soft, bruised mouth and flushed cheeks – before sinking lower. He twists his lips, flutters his tongue, and Liam absently tilts his hips up until the head bumps the back of Zayn’s throat.

He’s not as amateurish as he remembers – choking on the first guy he blew in the dark of some house party bathroom, tears streaming down his cheeks when the last guy he did this with fucked his throat raw and made him wank off before flooding Zayn’s throat with his own release – but it takes him a moment to adjust and his jaw throbs at the width rather than the pressure. His teeth scrape lightly, fingers squeezing around the base, and Liam tries to stay quiet but the night stretches out them until Zayn can pick out Liam’s _‘Christ you’re amazing’_ and _‘don’t stop, a little wetter’_ just below the hum of _‘was sort of hoping that you’d stay.’_

He pulls off and wipes the excess salvia, precome from his chin with the back of his hand and strokes lazily up Liam’s cock while watching the tremble in his thighs. He marks up the skin, moistens the downy hair between Liam’s thighs while his thumb draws back the foreskin, folds it back up with a quiet laugh. He breathes in Liam’s heady, dense scent and it’s boyish and body wash and cheap Axe spray.

“You’re just,” Liam starts with a shudder, fucking Zayn’s hair with incessant fingers that stroke out appreciation rather than urgency. “You’re beautiful, man. I’m sorry but you are – “

Zayn bites at Liam’s thigh to silence the rest but he imagines the words are prettier than anything put to paper by Frost or all of those literary geniuses he remembers reading about in school. He artfully uses his tongue to spell out promises across the underside of Liam’s dick and slicks his lips with precome at the tip before swallowing back around Liam, quivering with the way Liam tugs at his hair from the sensation.

“Fuck, you’re gonna make me,” Liam pleads, accidentally knocks a knee to Zayn’s shoulder but Zayn catches his balance while still taking Liam into his throat.

“’s the point, mate,” Zayn laughs with a hoarse voice and sore jaw, tonguing the foreskin away to slather the head in messy kisses. “Unless you had something else in mind?”

Zayn lifts a challenging eyebrow and Liam bites at his bottom lip, eyes sliding helplessly shut before shaking his head.

“Think I’d be awful at that right now,” Liam admits, reserved with a quiet voice that doesn’t fit with the pound of the dark sky or the rhythm of the electric guitar. But, on Liam, it sits prettier than pieces in art museums or graffiti on Zayn’s skin, the lining of his heart.

“You couldn’t be,” Zayn promises, swallowing the rest of his thoughts for the flavor of Liam still on his tongue. He looks away before Liam can _glare_ at him and smiles to himself, adding, “I think you’re probably just as good shagging as you are with a pencil.”

It’s overly saturated and on the far side of romantic and Zayn blushes, appallingly, before circling his lips around the head and tonguing Liam’s slit open. He sits back on his heels, lets Liam fuck up into his mouth for a few strokes and pinches his fingers into the skin of Liam’s thighs to say the _‘fuck yes keep doing that’_ that his tongue can’t focus on.

Liam’s hips stutter like his breathing and his fingers loosen in Zayn’s hair for half a second, Zayn’s jaw lax and inviting, before he bites off a moan that sounds like a crescendo against the nearby buildings. It leaves Zayn breathless, fumbling a hand into his own jeans, fighting against the tight material to circle his cock for a few strokes.

His lips are swollen, his tongue appreciative of the slick across it when Liam gets closer. Liam, in a haze of pants and too silent begging, asks permission with a light tug on the thick of Zayn’s hair and Zayn shifts an eyebrow up, teasing the underside of the head like a _‘yes please do’_ that Liam trembles for.

A hand knocks against the poor structure of the couch and Liam’s hips still mid-thrust and Zayn sighs happily when his mouth is flooded and his fingers come back sticky from his jeans. His recovery feels like lifetimes and he’s still licking at Liam’s softening cock with shut eyes, his spine coiled and curved before he feels Liam’s fingers circle his wrist to drag his messy hand upward.

Liam’s tongue is tentative, novice at first before he’s carefully sucking around Zayn’s fingers and casually cleaning Zayn’s hand with wide eyes and a nervous smile. Zayn thinks he feels a twitch in his cock and he groans at the sensitivity, shoving at Liam’s bare knee with a quiet laugh. He grins up at Liam and they trade their gratitude with judiciously pushed together lips, slow moving mouths when Liam plays against Zayn’s naivety and hauls him upward.

“First time not so bad?” Zayn wonders against Liam’s bruised lips and he doesn’t wait for an answer before fitting unused fingers against Liam’s hips to pin him down and kiss him properly.

He doesn’t want to know.

He wants it to mean nothing because _he’s just an intern_ , he thinks with his jaw angled by Liam’s fingers and he wonders if Liam can feel the heavy percussion of his heart through their shirts.

 

//

 

It’s another Saturday night and Zayn has been casually – and purposely – avoiding the advice from one of the art directions, Ben Winston with his creative mind and lack for presentation, about lights and darks and overexposure of superheroes under the low light of his desk lamp and the reflexively tired strain of his fingers. He doesn’t mind this, really, nor does he seek out refuge from an abandoned art room with unfinished sketches all around him and the promise of making a deadline he didn’t meet two days ago. He’s focusing on other things – technique, free sketching, the strong line of a jaw in ink rather than pencil – rather than Violator’s next adventure or that side project he promised Louis for some charity event. He’s humming all the wrong lyrics to the right songs and taking unpremeditated peeks out a nearby window to see the stars light up the sky like Icelandic laser shows over London fog.

It’s the kind of night he breathes, without distractions or Louis or that endless tick in his heart because he doesn’t have home or his mum’s cooking or a side of Liam when –

“Harry says you need to stay hydrated,” Liam says from behind him, startling him while shoving a pink Gatorade over his shoulder. “And one does not argue with a sensei as wise as Haz.”

He rotates around on his stool and Max’s left on desk light catches the square features of Liam’s profile in the dark of the empty art room. He’s got an authentic, stretched out smile and folded arms and a loose Batman shirt that pulls around the shoulders, flows outward around his waist with Green Lantern – Zayn grins secretly – briefs peeking from the low-slung jeans on his hips. His Converse tap out an SOS on the floor while he waits impatiently until Zayn snatches away the plastic bottle and takes a long swallow –

And Zayn doesn’t do it for the warm, grateful grin he gets back but for the flutter of those eyelashes and the morning dew sweetness behind raw honey eyes.

“You’re always working,” Liam points out, sinking away from the darkness and into the light to show off the flush of his cheeks with a little less shyness than Zayn remembers.

“And you’re always daydreaming,” Zayn teases, thoughtful with his own smile because it’s so immediate, it catches him off guard.

“Home,” Liam admits, dragging up a stool and dropping down on it, shoving his knees at Zayn’s until it almost hurts as much as the unsteady swell of Zayn’s heart.

He pieces together the uneven stitching of a broken promise about not letting this get past casual because, alarmingly, Liam bleeds into his skin and thoughts like an uncapped pen in the heat.

Zayn lifts his brow, takes another gulp of the sweet flavor before nodding at Liam. “You got mates back home like Harry?”

Liam laughs, bright and too sugary but Zayn doesn’t hate the sound.

No, he gravitates toward it like moths to luminescent exposure.

“Not even close,” Liam sighs, a victim of his own grin when Zayn sneaks casual fingers across the coarse fabric of his jeans. “My best mate Andy is a real dork, even if he comes off like a douchebag. And Maz is pretty athletic, Martin too. Don’t have but a few real mates but they’re nothing like Harry.”

Zayn nods, licks away the sour cherry flavor from his lips while his thumb sketches Batman symbols and half-done Superman emblems to the denim.

“My mates are nothing like Tommo,” Zayn admits, leaning back until the edge of his desk presses into his spine. “Maybe a bit manic like Niall but Lou is one of a kind.”

“Is this what you always wanted?” Liam wonders, jerking his head toward the map of Violator pictures hanging against the spare wall behind Zayn, the best issues and sharpest drawings.

Zayn frowns a little, tries to disguise it around the lip of the bottle but Liam’s fingers rush up his forearm and he thumbs at the ink there until Zayn sighs.

“Thought about being a writer, actually,” Zayn says, low and nondescript. He halves the rest of the words because Liam’s intoxicating with his eyes, the tight grip of his jaw when he holds his tongue. “I love literature. I’m pretty sick at skateboarding, too, but I never thought I could make it a career, y’know? Just summat to do, innit?”

Liam snorts but it’s not mocking. It’s endearing, the way Liam flits his eyelashes over his cheeks and leans in. His thumb is repainting the black on the _ZAP_ tattoo and fingers keep reworking the pulse of Zayn’s veins.

“I wanted to be a firefighter,” Liam admits, whimsical shyness returning so briskly. His cheeks light up and his eyes are distracted by the way Zayn licks his lips. “Always liked the idea of saving someone’s life.”

Zayn smiles until it turns crooked and his cheeks ache with the pressure before he whispers _‘Clark Kent’_ under Liam’s calm breathing.

Liam shoves at his knee, catches a hiccup in his laughter that echoes in his chest before he’s stealing faint touches up Zayn’s elbow and over the wrapped around bandana. Their feet brush and Zayn thinks about kissing him to see what his mouth tastes like tonight – probably nectary from those soft cantaloupe chunks he likes or bitter from warm coffee he drinks sometimes or maybe minty from that tea Harry forces upon him. He pushes down the thought and curves his fingers around the bones of Liam’s wrist to scratch at _‘only time will tell…’_ until his heart believes it’s a reference to Zayn and Zayn only.

“Do your parents know,” Zayn starts, abandoning the _‘about me’_ and replacing it with, “about you and boys, I mean? Like, do they care?”

Liam’s skin cools under his touch, lips twisting downward. It’s not that he expected it but there’s something foreign, secretive about Liam that gives away his private moments and disturbs his balance. But something pulls at Liam’s mouth and he blinks at Zayn, hard, for a moment before shrugging.

“Me sisters have always, sort of, looked out for me. Even when I was younger. They’ve always loved me in that sort of way like they had to be strong when I didn’t know how to,” Liam explains, the room glowing a wasted neon in the background. He scratches at his temple, lowering his chin before adding, “My parents don’t really chat about it, y’know. They’ve always been sort of well off and used money to take care of things, to deal with things but I think they know. They just don’t – well, they don’t ask me about it and that’s it.”

Zayn nods slowly, creeps unconscious fingers into Liam’s solar system until they brush _‘I understand’_ into his flesh, leaving small goosebumps behind.

“Yours?”

Zayn bites at his lip until the pressure threatens to break the skin, the contact his tongue provides soothing the ache. His leg jumps nervously and he tries to shield his awareness, his vulnerability when Liam’s fingers move apologetically over his wrist.

He vamps a smile and cocks his head to the side, knocking Liam’s ankle with the toe of his trainer.

“My abbu,” Zayn starts and Liam stretches his brow immediately.

“Your father, right?” Liam inquires nervously.

Zayn smirks, nodding, and his thoughts drift to a lazy Wednesday where they chatted about Zayn’s background, the words he could read in Arabic and the phrases in Urdu he sometimes uses while his commanding fingers guided Liam’s pliant hand through a sketch of Violator –

And he still holds onto that proud look Liam had when he finished, the drawing almost identical to something Zayn drew hours before and the smudge of lead on his fingers when he brushed them against Zayn’s knuckles as a _‘thank you’_ that couldn’t be said. Or the way Liam spent hours after that, recreating his favorite scenes from Zayn’s comics and the fluttered heartbeat Zayn felt under his ribs at the way Liam penciled out a Wonder Woman better than anything he’s ever seen.

“Yes, my abbu,” Zayn repeats with a thicker grin, “says he always knew. He loves me all the same even though he’s very traditional and faithful in his practice. But he says I’m his son, his little beta, and that’s all that matters.”

Liam’s smile warms like the ease of the sun in winter, lips breathing out a _‘tell me more sunshine’_ and Zayn thinks it’s hopeless to avoid those brown eyes for a second.

“My parents don’t really like the attention they get back home from what I do,” Zayn drifts out, the sour-sweet taste on his tongue strengthening him through the battlefield. “But they’re supportive, y’know? They love that my sister, Doniya, is in art school back east and my mummy buys every issue just to hang up the covers in my old room like a shrine.”

Liam mumbles a _‘more like an homage’_ and Zayn can’t help the smirk on his eyes when Liam’s cheeks make room for carved dimples. He studies the small bruises on the inside of Liam’s arm, rough burgundy marks across the tension between skin and muscle from their last encounter when Liam sucked a pretty spot to Zayn’s collarbone and thrust his cock into Zayn’s hand in the downstairs loo until he came between Zayn’s fingers and fluttered his tongue over a nipple and the muscles of Zayn’s abdomen until his orgasm striped Liam’s cheek and chin.

“We should get out,” Liam suggests when their cheeks are stained amaranth from their stares and the shadows around them cast lines over their absently linked fingers.

Zayn chases the lift of his brow with a half-smile, teeth pinching the inside of his lip.

“We should,” Liam repeats, a little more eager. “Saturdays are not meant for work.”

Zayn snorts, can’t quite remember a time when Saturdays were meant for anything other than drawing or listening to music while randomly flipping through a comic. He steals his fingers over Liam’s elbow instead, laughing at the way Liam giggles from the sensitivity in the fold.

“Lead the way Captain,” he teases, waiting on the French rose hue to pulsate down Liam’s neck, dipping beneath the collar of his shirt.

“You’d be my Romanoff,” Liam jokes back, leaning in before pressing an idling kiss to Zayn’s cheek, anxious about wanting more but he doesn’t act on it.

Still, Zayn feels the way it aches between them and they pull apart for the reminder that July is almost over and, _one month Malik, fuck_ drums in his ears louder than Liam’s rhythmic breathing. He loosens his fingers around Liam’s until Liam hops off his stool, snatching up a half-finished Ultron sketch Zayn had been working on and pocketing it with a sheepish grin.

Zayn shakes his head with a laugh, wonders where Liam stores all of the stolen images and tries not to imagine the way folded up paper with poor penciling and Zayn’s name scribbled in a corner look on his bedroom walls –

But he does imagine Liam’s bed and the cold sheets and waking up with ruffled hair, head tucked under Liam’s chin and traces of sticky lube still on the back of his thighs with his hole stretched achingly.

 

//

 

He isn’t really sure what to expect when Liam leads him through the London streets that are half-clouded with late July fog and early stars and a pale moon but when they stumble into that little diner downtown, with a hurricane of people in the streets from late night parties and twilight film dates, he’s a little happy and a lot embarrassed.

It’s more than a little shocking to find his favorite corner booth already stuffed with people and his eyes drag nervously over Liam’s face, the tangle of their fingers when Liam smiles at Harry and shyly leads Zayn closer. His breathing is out of pattern and his stomach knots up so quickly, effectively too, when he picks out Niall and Josh shoved together against the wall seat while Louis is wedged between a half-drunk Harry and a very unimpressed Eleanor, who’s taken to picking at her nails rather than listening to any of their conversations. There’s cups of coffee, plates of late night breakfast selections, a half-eaten salad with a matching herbal tea in front of Harry and half a seat left for them when Niall crawls unceremoniously into Josh’s lap with a grin.

“Welcome to _Misfits Inc._ ,” Niall announces loudly, still buzzing from cardinal whiskey shots without ice. His bleached hair is fucked from sweat – or random fingers if the way Josh’s hands sneak beneath a tight waistband are any indication – and his eyes are tinted that glow in the dark blue that Zayn loves under pale street lights in the center of the city.

“What?” Liam laughs out, sliding in first to slot his hips against Josh’s before dragging Zayn in, a little shyer with a preoccupied smile.

“Ignore him,” Louis fusses, reaching across the table to scratch a _‘hello’_ onto Zayn’s wrist and a welcoming nod for Liam. “He’s smashed.”

“Quite pleasantly,” Niall giggles and Josh’s fingers scrape up his side, thick with callous from drumming late nights but practiced like he already knows the definition of Niall’s ribs under his silly Nirvana t-shirt.

Zayn’s certain Niall will call it _authentic_ and he’ll argue that it’s _pandering_ , a bit conforming until Niall needs a definition of the word.

“We got kicked out of that exquisite,” Eleanor starts, still looking at her nails with sharp cheeks and flowing brown hair.

“It was _cheap_ and boring and uninspiring,” Harry argues softly, swallowing down some tea and his flushed cheeks dampen with saturated pink when Liam stares at him. “At least I thought so.”

“It was a bit dull,” Louis agrees, trading looks between Eleanor and Harry to soften the blow but Zayn’s convinced it’s not working.

“The lads just weren’t hipster enough for you, Haz,” Niall teases, dragging absent fingers through his hair and they bump against the set Josh already has on the crown of his head. He swallows a pleased noise that sounds like a moan and definitely looks like an orgasm until Josh goes pink and Niall slouches a little in his lap.

“Jeans weren’t tight enough,” Louis joins in, slinging an unconscious arm around Harry’s shoulders before quickly adding one to Eleanor’s tense ones to even the tension. “And they didn’t play enough Maroon 5 – “

“The 1975, you arsehole,” Harry laughs, stealing scraps of Louis’ eggs and feeding them to Niall with his greasy fingers instead of a fork.

Something flashes loud and jealous across Louis’ eyes but Zayn chooses not to comment – but he levels Louis with a stare like _‘you walking contradiction’_ that has Louis looking away and pressing a messy kiss to Eleanor’s cheek. She shrugs away with a howl of displeasure and Louis sinks further into the leather with no route of escape on either side.

There’s a nice purr of something nostalgic on the jukebox and Zayn searches the small expanse of the diner for Ruth but can’t find her amongst the messy waitresses, impatient cook, and steady flow of half-bladdered customers that tumble in and out of the swinging door. He feels Liam’s unsure fingers against his thigh, under the table, and the warmth he gives off like he knows the song but is still uncertain of the words – _You keep trying to forget about the good times. Does it make the fall a little better?_

Out of the thousands of adjectives and small selection of metaphorical phrases in his mind, he sticks with _inspiring_ when he thinks of Liam and rubs gently at the knuckles under the table until he thinks Liam can hear his thoughts.

“ _You know_ ,” Niall says in that dragging voice and it’s so familiar – from drunken nights at Zayn’s flat with half a bottle of cheap chocolate-flavored vodka passed around and Niall snoring an hour later on the hardwood – that Zayn hides his grin behind his spare knuckles while Louis lifts an inquisitive eyebrow.

Harry leans in, grinning, while Niall traces his eyes over Eleanor, sighing out, “I know of ways to make your life so much more interesting. It involves me, this super cool dude below me, and one bed. What d’ya say?”

Harry laughs brightly while Liam looks horrified and Zayn nudges his shoulder with a giggle brushing the side of Liam’s neck.

“Excuse me?” Eleanor chokes out but she’s not blushing or scandalized. She’s chewing at her lip and fixing her dress and almost purring out a shaky breath like excitement wets her thighs.

Niall grins, clumsily leaning forward until Josh catches him with sure hands. “We could make it worth your while.”

“Nialler,” Zayn warns while Louis narrows his eyes, trying to lace his fingers with Eleanor’s.

She swats off the possessiveness and flicks pieces of hair back, cocking a smile on her lips like she’s in control.

“You don’t look strong enough,” Eleanor presses, inclining until Niall’s cheeks flare a pretty red. She winks at Josh, lifting her chest until everything is pushed up and on display. “But maybe _he_ knows what he’s doing.”

“Fuck,” Niall breathes out and Josh is silent, except for a few words mumbled into the rear of Niall’s shoulder, a smile playful on his lips. “I could get off watching. Like, the things I’ve seen him do and what he’s said he would do to – “

“Horan,” Louis shrieks, Harry nearly tipping over with his giggles.

Liam pushes his stained cheek into Zayn’s shoulder, looking away but his lips twist up like he can imagine the words waiting on Niall’s tongue, like he’s thought about doing the same for Zayn and Zayn swallows his own groan while pressing fingers to the inside of Liam’s thigh. He scripts lyrics into Liam’s thigh and hopes Liam can feel the _‘I got the pieces if you got the time’_ he writes out.

“Brilliant,” Eleanor snickers, leaning back. Zayn swears her tongue deliberately licks away gloss like freshly frosted come on her lips and it’s decidedly gross but he saves his expression for the tendons in Liam’s neck, for the vibration Liam’s coughing laugh sends against his mouth.

They echo their laughter, loudly, through the diner until a dozen set of eyes are watching them. And then, when they think no one’s looking, Niall fishes out a small flask and adds vodka to half of their orange juices, passing them around like red solo cups at a party with giggles and wrinkled noses to match. Zayn listens intently while Liam argues the brilliance of _Toy Story_ and _the Incredibles_ over Eleanor’s favorite _Despicable Me_ and Niall, decisively and a little less drunk, merits the addictive pull of Simba’s journey in _the Lion King_ until they’re all nodding and grinning.

His heart keeps in time with the music and the _‘I want you somebody sweet to talk to’_ in his ears. The scratch of Liam’s fingers up his thigh, the _‘why do we fall’_ in his eyes like a constant loop of diversionary tactics that Zayn will surely never understand. But his lips quirk and he chews the bottom one for the relief it brings his chest until Liam’s eyes crinkle up and he’s gone again –

And he distracts himself by picking out all of his favorite selections on the menu, Liam following his finger along the plastic with a smile on his lips and a lift of his brow.

Liam feeds him the blueberries from his pancakes, adds sugar to his coffee like they’ve come to some sort of agreement on this unnamed pull between them while Louis leans his head on Harry’s shoulder rather than Eleanor’s. Zayn doesn’t miss the careful arch of Eleanor’s eyebrow or the way she returns the attention Josh and Niall keep offering her, lodging her fingers between Niall’s and stroking Josh’s ankle under the table with a bare foot.

He bites at his lip when Liam grins up at him, punching Zayn’s shoulder playfully until they’re laughing and Zayn’s overwhelmed, caged in, too far gone for repair when Louis clears his throat.

“You’re quite shit at this Zaynie,” Louis hiccups out, grinning teasingly from across the table. “The relationships thing, I mean.”

Zayn’s brow shifts up, his fingers still where they scratch out the _‘I’m just asking you to stay a couple of hours’_ on Liam’s knuckles. He berates himself when his breath hitches and Liam looks up curiously from a plate of greasy bacon, shoulders tensing.

“Especially with the last one,” Louis starts, eyes drooping a little.

Harry perks up quickly, knocking away Louis’ head and he rests a chin on bridged fingers. “ _Details_ ,” he grins, nudging his hips to Louis’. “Doesn’t count without details, mate.”

Eleanor gasps a little, sighs something pretty and Zayn wonders if her cheeks flush from the topic or the way Niall’s hand has suddenly slipped beneath the table and his smile has gotten a little more deceptive.

“His ex, right?” she asks, pushing back her hair. “The one that draws that one comic series? Bless, what’s her name?”

“Perr – “

Zayn kicks Louis under the table, grumbling something when Louis yelps and smacks into Harry. He lowers his eyes, fingers splayed on the table to count the bruises on his skin rather than the ones hidden behind his chest. He feels Liam’s fingers, completely uncertain and considerably shy, sneaking under the hem of his shirt and dragging up his hip.

“Funny,” Niall snickers, sliding a little further down Josh’s lap, “this lad never looked at her like he does with – “

He’s quick, quicker than Niall and reflexes lead the cavalry as he smacks the back of Niall’s head, momentum pushing against Liam and he settles back into the booth with a nervous twitch behind his fingers and five pair of eyes on him. He itches at his shoulder, lets the tension crawl up his spine and counts his breaths before pulling restless fingers through his hair.

“I need a break,” he mumbles, sliding out of the booth without looking at Liam. He thinks, hopelessly, it’s the hardest thing he’s had to do in hours, days, maybe a week and that thought alone chills his bones and lays winter across the lining of his heart.

He taps out a cigarette from the beat up back in his pocket, tries to fix what’s left of his quiff before jerking his head toward the toilets. He catches a slow nod from Louis, Harry eyeing him like he can see the anxiety stitched into Zayn’s expression. There’s a hesitation building around his shoulders that he can’t quite shake and the smoke that fills his lungs before he can get away is just another indication that he’s in over his head –

That Liam wraps himself around vital organs and seeps affection into his blood and pours unhealthy amounts of fixation into his synapses until it’s a full on assault he can’t quite cure.

 

//

 

He feels fifteen again, sitting on the porcelain sink in the tiny loo of the diner while chewing his thumbnail and huffing through a cigarette that he never tastes but soaks his lungs in it. He eyes the door, scowling at anyone that enters with a _fuck off_ on his tongue that he never has to use like a weapon because the wrinkle of his eyebrows sends each visitor away in retreat. The smoke exhales through his nose and his fingers curl around the cold surface of the sink, reflexively, until that feeling stretching over his skin is a little less taut. But none of it sews together that torn line down his chest or quiets the thoughts in his head.

When the door swings open again, with Liam of the other side, Zayn swallows down the smoke and too big words until his throat aches. He watches Liam lean against the wood surface of the door, blinking at him until Liam blindly throws the dead bolt and crosses the small distance between them quietly like he’s trying not to scare a rare bird. He almost, _almost_ twists away to check his appearance in the mirror behind him or just to look at anything other than Liam’s face but Liam smiles with sticky syrup on his lips and feather pink in his cheeks and Zayn’s helpless.

He’s fucking _wrecked_ , blindsided by the affection before he even sees it.

Liam cages him in with strong forearms and even more industrial hands on either side of his hips on the sink. He lodges his hips between Zayn’s knees and focuses his smile into something so damn endearing that Zayn wonders, for a brief second, if he’s even human.

But he is with that sweltering flush in his cheeks and wrinkled shirt and the soft peekaboo of Green Lantern briefs that Zayn wants tangled around his ankles with sweat lining his thighs and Zayn’s tongue pushed up that pretty pink hole, some religious chant of Zayn’s name across Liam’s lips.

Liam tilts his head, looks a little braver than Zayn feels, before anchoring Zayn again with a smile that’s contagious. His thumbs rub at Zayn’s thighs until Zayn misses Liam leaning in, breathing in the wasted smoke Zayn’s lungs push out. He’s decisively stealth when he steals the cigarette, dumps it into the nearby sink until it burns out under the slow drip of the faucet.

Zayn doesn’t whine or complain, stays pinned under those eyes until the adoration behind them is unwarranted and ruthless.

That stupid song from those _Twilight_ films plays on the other side of the door, all of its references to _‘I have loved you for a thousand years’_ mocking him because the twist of Liam’s lips and the reverence in his eyes, the slow lift of those fuzzy eyebrows is unfair.

It’s unkind.

It’s unavoidable and Zayn knows it more than anything.

Liam laughs quietly, eyes crinkling in just the slightest with raised shoulders and high cheekbones. Zayn thuds his head against the mirror, making Liam stretch his neck further to get closer and the smoke between them separates so quickly. It makes way for clarity in Liam’s eyes and thumbs hook into the loops of Zayn’s jeans, tugging him back until they’re almost chest to chest.

He hates that he loves the way Liam doesn’t ask about Perrie or the history of his broken heart or what shattered him so simply. He whispers something about Superman and Wonder Woman and curls his fingers under Zayn’s arse until Zayn rocks his hips and hooks his ankles around the back of Liam’s thighs.

“I get that you don’t want a relationship. I’m okay with that,” Liam promises, smile unwavering. He follows Zayn’s eyes even when Zayn tries to lower them, look away. “I’m okay with being your, I dunno man, your _whatever_. ‘s all good.”

Zayn swallows, chokes on the questions he can’t quite ask when Liam’s dragging the end of his nose against Zayn’s cheek and looking so happy to be this close. There’s a certain kind of conviction behind Liam’s confession, the kind of self-certified honesty Zayn associates with heroes and Metropolis and he breathes out a shaky exhale against Liam’s shoulder just before nodding.

“Your whatever,” he repeats, quiet and dark because it’s the kind of title Liam is undeserving of –

He should be an _everything_ , a beautiful disaster, a _reason for the air in my lungs_ but poetry and raw forms of endearment are things Zayn left in Bradford, in the sewers of London streets.

Regretfully, he whispers a _‘can we_ not _talk about it’_ when Liam’s drawing back and the fingers tightening around his hip aren’t defensive, they’re comforting. They’re stroking the ache from Zayn’s blood and Liam raises that one brow like he does when he’s trying to be amusing, a bit comical. His lips curl inquisitively before he’s laughing and Zayn ducks his head to cover up his own snicker.

Liam drags his lips just on the edge of Zayn’s when Zayn looks up, the lightest of pressure but never really kissing him. He presses a careful hand to Zayn’s chest, fingers tapping out the unsteady beat of a heart while he hums along to the distorted music from the jukebox – _I don’t believe you, I’m in a parachute falling in deep sleep_ – outside and he laughs against Zayn’s lips when Zayn’s fingers brush over his collarbone.

“Admit it,” Liam teases, wrinkling up his nose when Zayn fights back with lips chasing each of his breaths. “Bane is better than Doomsday.”

“He’s quite gangsta,” Zayn giggles, eyes tracing the soft pink of Liam’s mouth, the way it rounds, the tongue peeking behind white teeth, “but he’s no Doomsday. Doomsday killed Superman.”

Liam rolls his eyes, shaking with a snicker that vibrates against Zayn’s fingertips. Calloused fingers fit into his hair, that soft space behind his ear while a thumb drags over the stubble high on his cheek.

“It’s like saying Peter Parker is inferior compared to – “

“Shut up, babe,” Liam says with a relaxed smile and a fluent tongue dragging over his lips, “and kiss me.”

Zayn’s throat lets out a strangled protest, an embarrassing whimper that leaves his cheeks hot but Liam’s plush lips and clever tongue settle his senses down, a hand cradling the nape of his neck to hold him in place.

Liam kisses like he’s meant to say more, argue the differences and similarities between Professor Xavier and Magneto. Strong arms push Zayn’s spine against the faucet and hold him down, even when his hips tip upward, against the cold porcelain surface. He flutters his lips like a dream, pushes his tongue like a hallucination, wraps his spare fingers around Zayn’s hip like a lucid experience and Zayn –

Zayn loses himself, still guarded by rules but willingly falling from grace, if only for now.

 

//

 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon in the beginning of August when he sits alone at a table meant for five because Liam and Harry are at some company luncheon off site for a team building course the human resources department provides, Niall’s swamped with three series to look over while Caroline is out with the flu, and Louis’ chain smoking behind the building over _marketing costs_ and redefining sales percentages for the suits. He doesn’t mind – not so admittedly – because he’s got a cup of still hot black coffee – and no one to add the sugar – and a stack of old DC comics – with no decidedly anxious fingers to steal them away – and his feet kicked up on an empty chair. He thinks it’s academic and completely necessary to avoid all the little looks he gets and he doesn’t miss any of them.

Not one.

Except he misses the tips about eating healthy and the bright laugh from a peroxide blonde and the sharp tongue of a best mate and some boy who’s crawled beneath his skin, rubbed at his tattoos with calloused fingers until the ink feels smudged and replaced by Sharpie stains of a Batman symbol or a space monkey.

He almost misses a familiar throat clearing but her scent – always flowery, always Chanel, always too heady for him – gives her away and Zayn looks up at Perrie with a tray full of cake, a bottled water, and assorted cookies. His eyebrow cocks up, matching hers, and their _hellos_ are silent when he drags a chair out for her and slouches down in his own.

She smiles wickedly, lips smudged with bright lipstick and hair a faded shade of lavender this month.

“I thought you didn’t do lunch,” she teases, uncapping the water and forking up red velvet. She licks at the frosting and nudges his chair with a foot, winking.

“I don’t.”

She laughs, loose and far from that flirtatious one she used on him in Hyde Park, at the start of autumn when the leaves were turning scarlet and the sky wasn’t quite as brilliant as her blue eyes. She tucks stray strands from her sloppy ponytail behind her ear and peeks over his shoulder at the sketchpad in his lap before nudging his elbow to drag a stay line over his sketch of the Thing.

He looks up through his lashes, takes a careful sip of coffee while she rests her chin on her knuckles. Innocence isn’t her forte but she wears it like a summer dress and parades around her fair skin like it’s still ready to be bruised by lips, unconscious fingers.

“You didn’t do lunch when we were dating,” she tells him, lifting her shoulders into an awkward shrug that he never got.

“We didn’t date,” he retorts and that’s not a hiss on his tongue but it comes off harsh, purposely.

Her shoulders drop and she curls in on herself a little, that confidence reduced to mere stuttering breaths and a small frown. There’s a guilty look on her face and Zayn twists his lips, looking away before she can win him over.

“I’m sorry about that,” she says lowly, polished nails brushing over the ink on his upper arm, straying away quickly.

Zayn shakes his head instantly, still distracting himself with the rocky formation of the Thing’s structure. His pencil goes still, pressing hard into the paper before he adds, “Nothing to be sorry about. We chilled together for a few months, y’know, when I thought you were just a uni student who loved art galleries. Finished up your internship, made a few connections. Had some good times, you got a job here and we both don’t date company people. Pretty black and white.”

His tongue feels stiff and heavy afterwards and, out of the corner of his eye, she looks a little saddened but a little more honest when she says, “That’s not exactly how I see it but I understand.”

He doesn’t insert the _‘did you love me’_ or _‘when we fucked, did you wonder how many names you could get from my phone for a job’_ because he burned those words into crumpled up paper on his bedroom floor months ago. He merely lifts his eyes, smiles tightly and nods for her.

“I understand,” he repeats, the same words he said when she called to end things and regrets are certainly the kind of things he’s left in the dust of Bradford a long time ago.

Perrie bites gently at her lip, smearing some of the lipstick before thumbing at empty spaces of skin on his arm – and it’s a sharp knife when he realizes her touch doesn’t affect him, never has, as much as Liam’s calloused fingers and rough Sharpie and sharp teeth do there.

She breathes out a sigh, smiling sweetly before reclining into her chair. There’s an edge of a laugh across her lips when he lifts his brow and, suddenly, the air thins and turns into something a little less hostile. Her blue eyes plead and he groans softly, stealing a cookie and shrugging at her.

“Violator’s not doing so badly,” she says, out of nowhere because silence was never their strong point.

They were always laughter and drawn out arguments about Image Comics versus Dark Horse and debates over what films to watch because, despite him, she was a sucker for romantic comedies. They played music too loudly to kill the awkwardness and shagged even louder for the thrill of it.

He half-shrugs, teeth gnawing at his lip. “Guess not.”

“Still want to start up your own comic, yeah?” she wonders, lips closing around the neck of her water bottle.

He’s shy about nodding, eyes downcast. Something tightens around his spine and dreams are meant for chasing echoes in his ears, his mum’s voice so vivid and pliant in his heart. He arms his resolve with a hard shell and waits for her to settle nervous fingers on the table.

“I still have friends at Maverick Comics – “

 _Because you fucked them too and they still call back_ , he thinks, muscles coiling around his bones but not from jealousy. From spite.

“ – from when I interned there last summer and maybe I could make a few calls? I know they’re not really giving you an option here to start up something new or abandon Violator so.”

Zayn blinks at her, lungs needing the acidic burn of nicotine and the fresh air the rooftop provides but he avoids that feeling. He scratches dull nails up his arm, over that expanse of flesh left cold by her touch.

“What for?”

Perrie snorts, knocking a foot against his chair. “You idiot because, despite your moody and quite manic personality, I want to. I owe you.”

 _You don’t_ , he muses but he’s satisfied knowing she’ll still try.

“Maybe,” he mutters instead, fixing the glasses on his face and pushing the loose fringe of his hair back.

“Maybe,” she repeats with a laugh, tipping her head back. “You’re arrogant and suffocating, Malik, I swear.”

“You’re just afraid of the competition,” he taunts, fixing a wild smile to his lips while wriggling his eyebrows.

She clucks her tongue at him, shaking an earnest finger. “Fuck off. You’ll never have the number one comic book around here, babe. You’re just not that interesting.”

“My dick seemed to interest you quite a bit when – “

Perrie smacks his shoulder but fails in hiding the blush reddening her cheeks or the way her breathing goes out of tune again. She rolls her eyes, looking away before huffing and the silence spins dizzyingly around them for minutes. Her smile reminds him of a Lorde tune and Harry hurriedly scribbling out lyrics on a piece of paper for a possible music degree and _‘we’ve both got a million bad habits to kick, not sleeping is one’_ repeats in his head while he chews on his thumbnail, her lips wrapping around a plastic fork full of cake.

“I’m sort of dating someone,” she mentions like an afterthought, framing her eyes with long lashes dripped in mascara. She shoots him a cheeky smirk, the one she bears only for him, before adding, “She is – “

Zayn chokes on his coffee and she rolls her eyes with a quiet laugh.

“She is quite brilliant,” she finishes, biting at a small section of her lip. “Sweet bird, really. Caught me off guard, I swear. Jade is – “

“Jade?” Zayn asks, biting at his giggle and rubbing ink-stained fingers over her knuckles until she relaxes.

Perrie nods slowly, shameful with her blush and anxious with her smile. “We sort of hit it off. And she works here.”

He smiles back, the _‘I know’_ on his lips just a whisper over the noise of the cafeteria and the race of her heart. He watches her skin tint a delicate pink, nose scrunching at the way he shakes his head.

“You’re incredible,” he mutters, pulling up his knees until he’s scrunched into one chair with his sketchpad against his thighs.

“You used to tell me that,” she reminds him, bending the tone of her voice when he narrows his eyes, “whenever we were sat at your flat, watching those cheesy science fiction films – “

 _Flash Gordon_ , he thinks with a smirk.

“ – and I swore it was a chat up line but I was a wreck in your old sweats and ripped up shirts,” she says, reaching up to push the blonde of his hair backwards. “And, unfortunately, those words mean nothing compared to the way she looks at me.”

Zayn wrinkles his brow a little too affectionately and smacks her hand away.

“Wasn’t a compliment,” he moans, biting down on his lip again.

“Wasn’t meant to be,” she warns, tilting an eyebrow while folding her hands over the table. “It was meant to tell your daft arse that we all see the way you are with your intern friend – “

There’s a choked noise hollowing out his throat and his tendons tighten around his muscles until he freezes.

“ – and I think you’re a right idiot, Malik. He’s a sweet bloke,” she finishes, puffing out a breath that sways her hair from her face. “Not that I know him or would even look his way, but still. He seems genuine enough. So take my advice and fuck off. Get rid of this stupid _‘no dating’_ rule. Might surprise you.”

He offers her the smallest of nods, the quietest of smiles and she returns them with a middle finger and a resounding cackle. She kicks him under the table while he swallows down a gulp of coffee, pushes down that unnerving feeling inside his chest that feels like –

It hollows him and knots his stomach and it tastes a lot like _love_ , if he knew the flavor of something that strong.

He decides, admittedly, he probably does but he’s not willing to attach it to anyone in particular.

Certainly not a boy who’s only meant to last a summer, not a lifetime.

 

//

 

The first real rainstorm of the summer comes mid-August and just two days before the pitch dinner Perrie has set up for him with a few editors from Maverick Comics. It echoes a loud symphony composed of heavy raindrops, rolling thunder, and grey clouds crying out release through a half-opened window in his flat. He stretches lazily into the morning with the lights low and the shadows cooling every surface of each room. He feels it through the hardwood under his toes and sighs languidly while surrounded by a mess of half-done sketches. His fingers cramp from twisting around a pencil, a chunk of charcoal as he tries to finalize the structure of his main character and a name he can’t quite wrap his mind around.

His second cup of mint herbal tea – a gift from a very eager Harry Styles – goes cold on a corner of the coffee table, leftover Thai food still in the cartoon on the floor with a loop of _Man of Steel_ in the background. Pieces of the hardwood are tiled with poor renditions of supporting characters sketched in pencil, spotted in ink and he dances around them with bare feet, loose sweats that hang off his slim hips and a hugging Spider-Man shirt he’s certain he nicked off of Louis at the start of the summer. His phone keeps buzzing between the couch cushions and his bottom lip is raw from nervous teeth and anxious fingertips but he settles himself by the windowsill for the foggy moisture that slicks his bare forearm and the collision of raindrops against the emergency escape stairs.

He’s practicing axis lines and basic composition with an unlit cigarette between his lips, folded up on the couch, when a knock that’s nothing like Louis’ thumps against his door. His hair is hanging loose and his glasses are sitting low on his nose when he finds Liam leaning in his doorway with a sleepy smile, bright eyes, and the kind of glow you rarely find in the middle of a thunderstorm. They look at each for a long moment that he won’t admit yet but it feels a lot like _hello_ and _I’ve miss you since forever_ before Liam’s smile turns shy and his hand instinctively cups the nape of his neck, feet dragging at the threshold.

“I called,” Liam says in way of a greeting, eyes patterning over Zayn’s face and the relaxed state of his shoulders, the way his toes wiggle on the cold floor. “You didn’t answer.”

Zayn snorts, pushing back his hair and smudging charcoal high on his cheeks to disguise his smile.

“Working,” he says because it’s the only answer his tongue will carry. He drags his fingers up the archway and ignores the ache behind them to touch Liam’s cheek, the line of his neck before thumbing his birthmark grey.

Liam nods, rocking on his heels. “Am I interrupting?”

 _Yes_ , he thinks but shakes his head instantly. He rolls his eyes, stepping back for a silent invitation that Liam hesitates on before their inside with the door shut and far too much space separating them.

“How’s the stuff coming along?” Liam asks, shrugging out of his thick jumper and stepping out of his shoes.

Zayn scrubs the heel of his palm across his eyes and jerks his head to the landscape of failed attempts like a map to his slow deterioration into insanity. He smirks over his shoulder, kicking away horrible renditions of various villains and toeing the sketches he’s done of Liam’s eyes in various mediums under the couch. He hides his embarrassment by ditching the cigarette on the table and fitting himself back into that space by the window.

“I’m shit,” he huffs, pulling off his glasses. The world outside is a blur behind water-stained glass. “They won’t want my stuff.”

“Rubbish,” Liam laughs, tiptoeing around the kitchen. “You’re brilliant, you donut.”

Zayn snorts, fits his lip between his teeth and ignores the noises Liam makes while rummaging through the cupboards because the sound of his soft humming is so distracting – and oddly comforting but it’s an admission he’s not comfortable with yet.

They waste away in silence that’s far from awkward, Zayn’s senses alive with Liam’s presence and he takes up that old notebook filled with useless drawings and starts up another sketch – this time with a stronger jaw bleached with stubble and a round nose and eyes too warm for a dark hero before he adds abstract wings, full lips and sculpted arms like –

His unwillingness for admission stops the race of his heart.

“Mate, where’s the food in your flat?” Liam calls from a distance, white noise compared to the dense rain outside. “Your cupboards are naked.”

Zayn grins, lowers his head to smudge a few lines of the drawing and eye the stretch of a chest he’s created under shattered armor. He only looks up when foot falls shuffle closer and Liam sits on a corner of the coffee table in acid wash jeans, a loose Henley, and an honest smile. There’s a bowl of Weetabix in his lap and he’s breaking bits of an overripe banana into the milk, cocking his head sideways like he’s here just to admire rather than encourage.

Zayn sighs, biting at his lip again before he says, “’m sure that cereal is expired.”

“Nope. Two days left on it dude and the milk is still good too,” Liam replies with a dopey smile and a mouthful of cereal.

“Is this how you plan to spend your day?” Zayn wonders, choking down a sigh because he doesn’t mean to come off tense but it curls around his muscles so neatly.

Liam grins. “What? Bothering you?” he asks, tilting his head again like he can’t help himself. Zayn can’t help mimicking him, tangling fingers in his own hair. “Or making sure you know someone’s in your corner?”

Zayn’s heart stutters, mid-step and pumping _affection_ into his veins and he looks out to the large expanse of dark clouds in the sky to divert his attention from the sincerity in Liam’s eyes. He swallows, repeats, breathes out a shaky breath and remembers those lips raw and across his jaw in a diner bathroom with their hands looking for new destinations and uncharted islands of skin to roam over.

“Both,” he says softly but there’s far too much exhilaration in his tone to hide. He snatches up his pack of smokes instead, tapping out one before tossing the pack back onto the desk and he fits himself into the windowsill with his legs dangling outside and his feet kissing the rain.

His fingers cup around the flame when the wind threatens to soak his joggers, eyes sliding shut on the first breath of blue smoke. He lets it coat his lungs and burn off that ache for a dopey smile and big eyes and the crinkles that narrow them when he laughs. He tips his head back, exhaling the fever and saturated smoke into the pelt of rain. There’s a metallic smell to the air, something bleached like chlorine but comforting like morning hugs.

Liam peeks his head out mid-puff, the smoke swirling in Zayn’s throat when he cocks up an eyebrow. Liam smiles back, nudges Zayn’s hip for a second before Zayn groans happily and budges up for Liam. They fit their hips together, knees touching, and it’s a tight fit in the small windowsill but Liam makes it work with his feet brushing Zayn’s and an arm around Zayn’s waist for support.

Their silence squeezes between the parts of their bodies not touching – that small space between their torsos and the unfinished line of their shoulders and that sliver of a gap between their elbows. Liam’s flipped through his iPad and tuned his television to surround sound until something vaguely familiar washes the color out of the background to turn everything a sugary grey like old newspaper comic strips and the best kind of films.

He tips his head onto Liam’s shoulder, letting Liam steal his cigarette while a voice swears _‘still can feel you kiss me love, still can see your brown skin shining, shining.’_ Liam huffs through a quick pull instead of tossing the cigarette, smiling around the smoke and heaving out a smoker’s cough that’s adorable rather than pathetic. And Zayn loathes the way he presses the cigarette back to Liam’s lips until he can do it with a little less strained, eyes crinkling and smoke filtering out through his nose. He thumbs charcoal over Liam’s bottom lip and their spare fingers tangle in Liam’s lap while the waves of rain wash against their feet and soaks the cuff of their bottoms.

“Nolan over Burton,” Zayn says between breaths of smoke and pouring rain flicking onto their knuckles. “And Jason Todd over Grayson.”

“Bullshit,” Liam laughs, knocking their elbows and sucking in another breath of sweet grey clouds. “Stewart over Hal Jordan.”

Zayn looks accosted and makes a face that Liam smirks at. He lets out a wounded noise when Liam sneaks his fingers away but then they’re pressing to his ribs, outlining the bones and sketching out _‘come on and drive me wild’_ with an abandoned shyness. He traces up Zayn’s arm, leaving behind raised skin and Zayn arches into those fingers with a vulnerable look on Liam’s face. Brown eyes like summer fields outline Zayn’s lips and their breath turns slow, unsure when Liam angles his head just a little.

It’s the kind of kiss Zayn’s certain he’s read about in a dozen novels, seen in a million movies, and it’s still just as captivating when Liam presses a little firmer and lets a small moan escape his lips. It’s a repetition of nervous movements and the rain slicks over their cheeks, even when Liam lifts a hand to drag over Zayn’s stubble. He pushes back, bites at Liam’s lips before soothing it with an illicit tongue. Their noses bump and they change angles, absorb each other’s breaths like the oxygen shouldn’t be wasted and Zayn drops the cigarette to curl his fingers over Liam’s neck, to feel the sharp pricks of his hair.

Liam laughs into his mouth when the wind shifts and kicks a wave of water across their necks, their hair, down their shirts. Zayn smiles back, licks at bruised lips and swallows Liam’s next moan when he playfully mouths his bottom lip. They endure the hurricane and drown the music with the thunder – or the pound of their hearts – but Zayn doesn’t miss it when Liam whispers _‘I remember you and me tangled in hotel sheets for hours’_ until Zayn can’t stop himself from kissing Liam quiet in the haze of moisture.

They giggle and Zayn tangles his fingers around Liam’s when he drags them back inside, drenched in summer rain and soaked with affection. He thumbs at Liam’s throat, traces the flexing birthmark under his fingers and Liam coats the tendons in his neck with laughable kisses. Their fingers crawl beneath heavy clothes, peeling away layers for more skin and they thump into the coffee table and knock over an empty bowl with their lips never detaching.

“Wonder Woman or – “

“Always Catwoman,” Liam giggles against Zayn’s mouth and Zayn doesn’t swoon, he swears he doesn’t until Liam adds, “always Catwoman, babe.”

He struggles with fingers fisted into Liam’s soaked Henley and their trousers stuck to their hips but he manages to blindly find the bathroom and they strip each other off messily with lips kissing at every newly revealed piece of skin and tongues licking away bitter, salty rain. They fight over the faucet and Zayn lets Liam leave behind small bruises across the curve of his shoulder when he wins, anchoring his emotions to the floor and sliding unsteady hands across Liam’s spine until Liam begs _surrender_ with his teeth at Zayn’s collarbone.

“I was always a fanboy for Marc Silvestri,” Liam admits under the rainfall of the showerhead, sketching kisses along Zayn’s cheek and pushing back his damp hair.

Zayn smiles against Liam’s temple and scrubs the rain from his skin, missing that lingering scent on Liam’s skin because he always smells like coastal sands and salty California surfs. He slots his hips against Liam’s and tugs him further under the onslaught of water just for the giggle that breaks past Liam’s lips.

“Good,” Zayn sighs, pleased while scrubbing fingers across Liam’s scalp and he whispers a _‘because you remind me of Burnout’_ into the shell of Liam’s ear with a grin.

They test the vulnerability of each other’s skin to soft touches, long kisses, and foam up stretches of flesh with soap while patiently staring at each other, waiting for the other to speak. Instead, they snicker and kiss hard and drown out their whimpers with softer voices debating the meaning behind _the Killing Joke._ He smiles against Liam’s forehead when Liam bows his head to trace all of his tattoos and blushes when fingers slip against the ones that are usually concealed – the heart on his hip, the lettering on the opposite side, the lips just below his collarbone, the playing card against his ribs. The scalding water slips down their skin like an artificial volcano and Liam drags his nose against Zayn’s throat until the laugh trapped there escapes and they chase their smiles with fumbling fingers, learning the definitions Zayn wishes his hands could sketch out on paper.

They breathe underwater when Liam’s hands slip down his torso and still unpracticed fingers slide around the root of his half-hard cock to stroke him sensitive.

“I don’t,” Liam swallows with his chin still lowered, eyes on the way Zayn stiffens between his fingers, “I don’t quite know what you like, yet.”

Zayn smirks and pushes him against the tiled wall just to kiss him loosely. He twines his fingers around Liam’s wrist and waits until Liam tightens his grip before showing him.

“The head,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s hair, hips tipping up on instinct. “’s what I like best but, sometimes, I like it really slow and I like to get my thumb sticky with the precome.”

Liam groans, watching their hands, the way Zayn’s fingers knock his out of the way for a moment to play along the veins and thumb the slit wider. He bites at his lip and Zayn steadies his nervous jaw with his unused fingers, picking up the rhythm on his cock. The noise is wet and echoes off the acoustics while the steam breathes out into the hallway. He bites at Liam’s collar, pushes the head along Liam’s taut stomach muscles and slides down to the base to play with his balls.

“And sometimes,” Zayn stutters out, relinquishing his hold to Liam’s confident fingers again, “I like to really work myself up and stop.” He waits until Liam follows his cloaked instructions, shivering and standing on the tips of his toes when Liam halts mid-stroke, pressing his thumb just beneath the head.

“Yeah,” he moans, his spine curling forward as he sucks a rough mark to Liam’s neck. “And I like it when – “

He stops and quakes when Liam adds a second hand, refusing to keep Zayn balanced when he’s learning the curve of Zayn’s dick and the way it spits out precome, the flare of the head when Liam teases it roughly. He secures a hand to Liam’s shoulder and fucks into the loose grip Liam provides, hips slamming like he imagines they would if he was buried in Liam –

And he closes his eyes on that, the thought of Liam spread over his sheets and arching for Zayn, sobbing out his name and squeezing his thighs around Zayn’s anchoring hips.

“Can I,” Liam pauses with a pink tongue licking away hot water and a thumb tracing the vein, “can I get you off? D’ya think maybe I can – “

“ _Yes_ ,” Zayn whines because there’s nothing else he wants more. There’s not enough words and surely not enough oxygen so he focuses the slow roll of his hips on the reactions Liam gives him, the way Liam’s cock hangs hard and ready between their thighs as Liam wanks him properly.

“And when I’m really excited,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s ear, shuddering when Liam’s breathing accelerates, “sometimes I get a few fingers all wet and slide them over my hole, pressing but waiting until I relax enough. Waiting until I can’t take it, man, and then I just fuck myself on them until I leave my hand all sticky and my body sweaty.”

Liam groans and Zayn whimpers against Liam’s cheek when fingers catch around the head, biting down on his own lip to suffocate Liam’s name on his tongue while coming between Liam’s fingers, over the tightened muscles of his abdomen. Words escape him, favored adjectives suddenly reduced to low whines, and he feels Liam wrap an arm around his spine to hold him through the aftershocks.

 

//

 

They stumble out of the shower with raw, pink skin and even darker bruises and Zayn hates, _hates_ ever giving Louis the spare key to his flat because he’s perched on the couch between the cushions with his phone balanced on one knee and an _Amazing Spider-Man_ graphic novel in his lap. His hair is hidden behind a grey beanie and his blue eyes go wild and wide at the sight of them in towels and fresh droplets of water still sliding down their shoulders.

“Quite the scandal, you two, yeah?” Louis teases with a curvy smile and Liam sneaks behind Zayn with his lips between his teeth and calloused fingers stroking the dip in Zayn’s spine.

Zayn rolls his eyes but coils into Liam’s touch intentionally to let him know his thoughts, to provide the armor Liam’s too nervous to wear.

“Oh, bless, you’re blushing love,” Louis tosses at Liam while staring at Zayn, lifting an eyebrow at him. He snorts when Zayn flips him off and lowers his eyes so Liam can slip into an old pair of discarded joggers Zayn has on the floor of the hallway.

“Lou, what are you – “

Louis quickly holds up a finger, taking a meditative sip of orange-spiced tea from a stolen mug out of Zayn’s kitchen before licking his thumb and turning the page. “Very important part here, Malik, I’d hate to miss it.”

Zayn groans and Liam’s laugh washes the nape of his neck like a sweet caress or the steam from a waiting shower. He grins into his shoulder and nudges back at Liam, the rebound drawing up another giggle and the texture of firm muscle coiling around him.

Louis blinks up, smirking deviously at the shape of Liam’s fingers around Zayn’s bicep and the curve of Zayn’s smile almost pressed into Liam’s cheek.

“Indeed,” he hums a little too smugly and Zayn catches the off-center of Liam’s blush, the way it angles up his cheekbones and darkens the skin of his neck. “Quite the pair, you two.”

Zayn bites down on the _fuck you_ that clings to his teeth like sour bubblegum and Liam’s fingers, his skin, his smile, that occupancy of space he held slips away.

“I should – probably,” Liam stumbles, jerking his head down the hall.

Zayn doesn’t reply, glances over his shoulder at the fumbled turn Liam makes, the way he slinks down the hall and into the shadows. He watches the stretch of his spine, the flex of the muscles in his back, the raw shade of his skin – that lick of honey, mostly earthy colors from days in the sun and nights glowing in the moon. He tangles his fingers in his damp hair and scowls at Louis when a soft giggle teeters past his lips.

“Remind me to research the definition of a _‘relationship’_ from the abridged Oxford edition because I’m almost certain it includes sharing clothes and blowjobs and billable water resources,” Louis cackles, pushing at his beanie and sliding on a pair of vintage Ray Bans even though the shadows still swallow half of the flat and the sky outside is a pewter grey.

Zayn flips him off and carelessly drops his towel to slide into a pair of boxers – he’s fairly sure they’re Liam’s by the loose grip of the waistband around his hips and the Incredible Hulk printed on them – before sliding down next to Louis on the couch. He props his feet on the coffee table, steals Louis’ tea and fast-forwards to all of his favorite bits of the film.

“We’re not a couple,” Zayn mumbles, thumping his elbow into Louis’ ribs, ignoring the echo of his whine.

“You’re absolutely right,” Louis cheers, reaching out to weave his fingers through Zayn’s still loose, damp hair. “You’re a Twitter trend waiting to happen, though. An epic hashtag. An instant like on Tumblr. I’d be absolutely chuffed about that.”

Zayn groans, sinks into the worn cushions of the couch and wedges an arm around Louis’ side to drag him closer. He traces out the _‘it is what it is’_ and sighs into Louis’ shoulder while Louis’ fingers drag haphazardly with no destination in mind.

“Would it be so horrid?” Louis asks and, when Zayn arches a questioning eyebrow, Louis flicks his nose before adding, “You and the redtag?”

Zayn makes a face instantly. “Not gonna happen, mate. His time is almost up and I – “

Louis rolls his eyes and blows at his tea. “You don’t date people at the studio, yes, we’ve all heard it. You’re an absolute twat and, for all of the rules you’ve broken across this city by spray painting the walls and skateboarding on private sidewalks, you’d think you could make an exception.”

Zayn bites his tongue, drags his nose up Louis’ arm for the scent of expensive cologne and breaths slow exhales into his shoulder until his heart stops racing. He coils fingers around Louis’ wrist like that steel wire around his lungs and refuses to respond, not when he thinks of that one quote from secondary school – _‘I wish they would only take me as I am’_ – and he’s always, always loved Van Gough’s works but maybe his _words_ a little more –

And, somewhere between the harsh breaths and the uneasy feeling down the rungs of his ribs, he thinks _Starry Night_ is an absolute mystery compared to a masterpiece like Liam.

“Why are you here?” Zayn asks instead of analyzing and overthinking.

Louis pouts, drains the rest of his tea. “Can’t I just visit my best mate and – “

“No,” Zayn says dryly but his mouth quirks up immediately when Louis glares at him. “S’matter? Bored or summat? ‘s not Harry, innit?”

Louis’ eyes flash something wicked that gives him away and he turns his head quickly, tucking his chin. From profile, he looks childlike and a little broken but a lot scared.

“I just want to shag the idiot. I don’t want to pine or swoon or date him and I certainly don’t want to wake up to him with a cup of coffee and biscuits every morning,” Louis says, his voice a low, strained drag. He flexes his fingers around the empty mug and wiggles his toes against the arch of Zayn’s foot.

Zayn hums, tightening his arm around Louis’ waist. “But?”

Louis sighs and pushes down against the springs of the couch. “But it feels like that, some days. Like if I just fucked him or got him off instead of taking him to posh restaurants and listening to him tell me about his favorite lectures or the sole purpose of his economics course, then I could survive.”

Zayn nods, chewing at his lip. He flicks his eyes down to their feet, the way they absently wriggle against each other. Then, under Louis’ breath, he hears something familiar and the gentle vibrato sings, rhythmically, _‘boy I adore you.’_

“He likes me in suits,” Louis adds, a little less strained, “and he doesn’t mind my bad habits. The arsehole has me eating egg whites and trying yoga stretches and he fucking got me addicted to some awful lemon herbal tea he buys from a spice market.”

Zayn chokes on a laugh before ghosting bruised knuckles up the back of Louis’ arm. His stubble catches on Louis’ collar and he licks empathetically at his lips for the words he can’t create with his tongue –

And this is nothing like the Louis that Zayn adores. Not the one who spent nights in Zayn’s flat with Nirvana’s ‘In Bloom’ on repeat while they decorated the bare furniture with silly string and sat in the windowsill sharing a joint or splattered neon paint on a spare wall in Zayn’s bedroom, making it a feature Zayn can’t live without.

He knows this is the deep breath before the fall, the rush of adrenaline before something incredible, the moment of unchained clarity before the fire consumes you.

Liam stumbles back into the room with a stolen Boyce Avenue t-shirt Zayn used to wear faithfully in ninth year that sits snug around the shoulders, the cotton stretched across the fullness of a chest. There’s something fuzzy right around the edges, the way he fits and slips into the cracks and Zayn _knows_ this feeling.

He knows the aftermath too.

He turns his eyes away, wrecked for a beat by that smile, and pokes a pointed finger into Louis’ side.

“I think it’s a bit daft, honestly,” he starts, waiting on the way Louis looks at him through his eyelashes, “to seek out summat with someone who won’t be around in a few weeks, Tommo. ‘s not worth the disappointment, y’know.”

Louis blinks at him, scandalized and uncertain, before looking at Liam and Zayn thinks he’s wasted so much of his life trying to define and redefine this feeling. He thinks _absolute misery_ would work into his cells better than the frown that pulls at Liam’s lips for a second, the way he shuffles his bare feet in Zayn’s clothes and cups the back of his neck like he’s completely uncertain now.

Like the undertow and the stiff waters and being swallowed by a tidal wave.

Something shifts like indifference over Liam’s face and he sucks in a hard breath at the way Liam bites his lip, lowers his brow. Liam looks away immediately, searching for an exit before his shoulders drop and he says, “I should – yeah, I should just.”

Zayn waits on the rest but Liam stiffens, all of his muscles tense and the veins showing, before turning away and seeping back into the shadows.

He watches that spot, the dust settling where Liam once stood, and even with the cliché his heart stops and there’s an uneven balance to his breathing when he realizes –

 _This feeling will not go away_.

Louis knocks his knuckles against Zayn’s temple and shoves at him before cuddling closer to whisper, “Brilliant Malik. Fucking brilliant.”

 

//

 

The dry breeze of the air conditioner gives out sometime after midnight and Zayn wakes up with slick skin and a wide-eyed Liam between his sheets at half-past two.

“You didn’t sleep,” Zayn says rather than asks and Liam merely blinks at him, the rapid flutter of soft eyelashes captivating in poetic terminology that Zayn doesn’t have a grasp for in this groggy state.

The dusty beams of the moon illuminate their skin in silvery-blue and Zayn stares at Liam’s naked chest, the slow rise and fall, for minutes and remembers scratching out an _‘I’m sorry’_ to his bare shoulder for hours while they sketched side by side on the couch, not speaking. He thinks Liam accepted it sometime before ten with Chinese takeaway by their feet on the coffee table when he tossed an arm around Zayn’s shoulders to tug him close and forced Zayn to sit through the entire second season of _Justice League Unlimited_. Zayn hid his grin against Liam’s collarbone and waited until Liam kissed the anxiety in his lungs away, both of them refusing the words in their hearts for the agony on their tongues.

The window is partially cracked, letting in the dewy scent of soft falling rain and the foggy charcoal scent of the too warm night. It cracks in Zayn’s bones when he stretches and diffuses the strain of his muscles with exhaustion before Liam anxiously tangles his fingers in Zayn’s untidy hair and watches him closely.

“What I said to Lou – “

Liam shakes his head immediately, bottom lip twisted between his teeth and legs tangling with Zayn’s underneath the sheets.

“No labels, remember?” Liam says with a hoarse voice and apathy settled into those chestnut eyes.

“And you’re okay with that,” Zayn tells him. He licks at dry lips and brushes his knuckles over the bruises his lips made in the shower.

“I’m okay,” Liam stutters.

Zayn’s fingers trip down his collarbone and they tremble against the flutter of Liam’s heart in his chest. He darts his eyes downward to Liam’s torso, where the sheets slide down and expose a bare hip, a thick curl of hair around his half-hard cock and he recites _‘there is no remedy for love but to love more’_ because literature is a soft spot and Thoreau was an absolute idiot for fusing this feeling into his soul.

Liam’s phone has been on shuffle for hours and there’s no order to his playlists but the low thunder mixes beautifully with Drake and Young the Giant, the lightning orbiting the sky between Imagine Dragons and Dr. Dre. His hand slips over Liam’s waist, smearing the sweat, when something pungently unfamiliar filters from the living room and he crawls the achingly wide space separating them on the cue of _‘I can see the glowing lights I can see them every night.’_

It’s too far past the dark hour and the stars can’t be seen between the black and grey but the sky is lit like a fireworks display over Antarctica when Zayn watches Liam turn a pink cheek into the pillows for a shy smile. He climbs up Liam’s spread body and presses their naked skin together, loving the shameless quirk of Liam’s lips and the way they fit masterfully between the shadows and cotton sheets.

“I’m okay with it,” Liam swears with a little more confidence and, lower, “let’s not waste time.”

Zayn’s helpless with a laugh and chases Liam’s quiet giggles with a kiss across his neck, a bite to his birthmark until Liam shivers and anchors their hips together with sure hands and desperate fingers. Zayn sighs under Liam’s jaw, loses focus when Liam strokes his tongue to Zayn’s ear and his eyes flutter shut seconds before their first kiss in hours.

They’re playful when fighting for control and a stealth hand makes its way into Zayn’s hair to tug experimentally, anxious teeth scraping at the ink on his collarbone. He hitches his hips and loves the way Liam responds with a stiff tilt that knocks their bodies together and scratches up his skin. They’re not synchronized, not like Zayn’s been with other lovers – and they all feel like nameless practice sessions for this moment – and Liam’s still trying to find his bravery when Zayn rotates on him to press their cocks together.

“This’ll be your first time?” Zayn asks between breathless kisses and rough hips colliding. “With a lad, of course.”

Liam blushes and kisses back a little firmer, learning the strength of his tongue and the ridges at the top of Zayn’s mouth.

“Maybe,” Liam replies with his voice clenched by nerves.

“Maybe,” Zayn repeats with a wicked smile, admiring the dark of Liam’s eyes and the way they’re blown when Zayn rocks against him.

The sheets tangle around Liam’s ankles and the pillows are knocked away when Zayn desperately searches for the lube, a condom for a _‘just in case’_ while Liam bites at his neck and sneaks dry fingers across his exposed hole.

“Can’t be much different, right?” Liam wonders with husky breaths.

Zayn snorts, spilling lube on Liam’s fingers and half of it drizzles over his chest too.

“A bit,” Zayn laughs, reaching down to kiss the perplexed look off Liam’s face. “Probably need to go a bit slower at first and the prep is a little more – um, well _different_.”

He flexes the muscles of his hole against the tip of Liam’s finger for emphasis and smiles dopily at the way Liam coos, looks ashamed all at once.

Zayn presses his knees into the mattress, against the wrinkled sheets below them and slowly spreads his thighs for Liam with an unabashed look on his face when Liam whispers _‘oh babe’_ while slicking the back of Zayn’s thighs with messy lube. He bites at his lip when Liam can’t find the right angle, pressing his face into the hollow of Liam’s neck while arching his back and the shudder that rolls up his spine when Liam pushes in to the third knuckle knocks the sweat off his skin.

“This right?” Liam asks, opening him with a slow finger, twisting and curling until Zayn bites his skin.

Zayn lets out a breathy _‘yes’_ and thrusts back, trembling when Liam works a second finger in. Instinct kicks in and his muscles relax for a moment, loving the stretch but adoring Liam’s anxious pants more. He finds an awkward position to reach between them with a sweaty hand to stroke Liam and the quake in Liam’s thighs is beautiful by touch alone.

Liam pushes a little too roughly and curls his fingers at the completely wrong angle until Zayn winces and an incontrollable whine slips past his lips. Liam’s fingers freeze and his muscle strain with the tension and the look on his face squeezes the oxygen from Zayn’s lungs. He adjusts quickly, leaning down to press a smiling kiss to Liam’s lips and flutters the loose muscles around Liam’s fingers until confidence expounds itself across his features. He resumes with unsteady movements until his middle finger stretches just far enough to nudge against something that ignites the sparks in Zayn’s blood.

He moans against Liam’s swollen cherry lips, eyelashes beating against Liam’s cheeks. A hand cups his waist and he shoves back onto Liam’s fingers, knuckles-deep, before panting into the salty taste just beneath Liam’s jaw.

“Should I keep going?” Liam asks while his fingers still rotate and stretch the muscles.

“You shouldn’t stop,” Zayn replies, almost begs but he has some form of resolve left until Liam slips in a third finger and he’s reduced to breathy noises and Liam’s grin presses to his temple.

“How much can you take?” Liam wonders without the smugness Zayn imagines anyone else would have but his pinky is outlining the rim and Zayn’s cock leaks a steady trail of precome over his belly.

He muffles a response that tastes like a scrambling of letters and words and squeezes Liam’s cock tight in retaliation. He tries not to imagine Liam adding another finger or how open he must be or the thought of riding Liam with more than just a cock in his arse but everything coils sweetly in his lungs until the sweat breaks skin and glows luminescent in the moonlight.

His fingers are fisted into the sheets on one side of Liam’s head with his knees bracketing strong hips and he finds it impossible and a dozen synonyms to match to look away from the scruff along Liam’s jaw or the caramel shade of his birthmark or the incredibly sweet smile twisted on his lips when he curls his fingers just right this time. It creates a numbness up Zayn’s spine and a heaviness between his thighs, his lips caught between his teeth as he hums out every other beat with the _‘if I tried you’d probably be hard to find’_ in the background.

Liam cranes his neck and uses his spare fingers to steady Zayn’s hips before he shoves a kiss against Zayn’s lips. He licks the tangy nicotine off Zayn’s tongue and replaces it with the sweet chocolate chip flavor of the ice cream Zayn fed him in the dark. Liam’s fingers are obscene and amazing at the right degree but there’s no finesse and Zayn thinks that makes it so much more beautiful.

Zayn chews at his bottom lip to hide his amusement at the determined look on Liam’s face when he fumbles with the condom and slicks himself with too much lube. He ducks his head, muscles and limbs and nerves still afire from Liam’s touches and he rocks impatiently on his knees when Liam cocks up an eyebrow, trying to parade something smug on his face. It’s almost believable with his cock curved off his belly and his fingers smearing away the lube but there’s an enamoring flush to his cheeks and a ruddy-pink to his full lips that the moon refuses to disguise.

The rain picks up outside when Zayn straddles him, Liam’s trembling fingers catching his hips and he smiles down at him, letting Liam have control for a moment. The thunder aches across the grey while Liam licks the dryness from his lips, adjusting Zayn just a little. Zayn fists the sheets on either side of Liam’s head and smirks crookedly when Liam rubs the latex across his fluttering hole, nudges just a little like testing the temperature of the water with a toe.

Liam’s a little too eager and Zayn’s a little too anxious when he begins to slide in. He hesitates on Liam’s haste, hissing sharply when Liam shoves in and his body tightens immediately, his mind rapid with _‘it’s been too long you idiot, what the fuck were you thinking? This was an_ awful _plan.’_ He clips his lip with his teeth while his spine coils up tight, Liam pausing halfway with a shocked expression that turns dreadful. His muscles squeeze around Liam and it takes too many minutes for the pain to give way to something beautiful.

“I’m sor – “

Liam’s hands stutter up his sides and their foreheads collide when Liam pushes up too quickly to press an apologetic kiss to Zayn’s lips. His knees lose a bit of balance, Liam propped up on his elbows and they laugh at each other with throbbing heads and uncoordinated bodies.

“S’okay,” Zayn promises against Liam’s lips, twisting his hips slightly to alleviate the pressure and his muscles relax on instinct, sinking further down. “You’re good. Fuck, you’re so good.”

Liam nods against his head, chewing his lip and his skittish fingers squeeze around Zayn’s hips, thumbs pressing gently against bone. His thighs shake and his chest expands as Zayn drifts lower. He’s quiet other than the little half pants brushing past his lips and Zayn presses affectionate lips to his, stitching his gratitude to the seam with his tongue.

Their completely out of place rhythm draws up a breathless giggle from Zayn’s lips. Liam’s fingers twine around his between the sheets and he rocks his hips slowly while Liam holds his breath. He soothes his smile into the crook of Liam’s neck, licks at the stretched tendons until Liam relaxes and his body finally stops pulling at the tightly wound strings when Liam thrusts back.

There’s nervous kisses and even greater uncertainty in their touches, the way they position each other. Zayn fights for control while Liam succumbs to scattered goosebumps at the way Zayn squeezes around him. Their noses knock when they search for an angle, Zayn losing himself in a kiss when Liam tilts up just as he’s sliding back down. The bed shifts and the frame knocks gently against the wall with the rain washing London a gunmetal grey, drowning out half of the music from the other room.

“Please,” he begs absently, helpless when Liam traps his fingers in his hair and tugs sweetly. “Just – you can go a little faster if you want.”

Liam grins, stutters his hips almost perfectly until he nudges up against Zayn’s prostate. He settles back down, spread out across the mattress with Zayn’s hands curled around his shoulders. His thighs spread and he uses the momentum his feet provide to fuck up into him while Zayn swivels his hips. It’s awful – their synchronization, their untimed breathing, the way they refuse to let the other lead the dance – but Liam licks the salty sweat from his lips and slides damp hands over his waist to settle the nerves back down.

Zayn teeth twist his lip and he’s shameless when he whispers, “You can go as hard as you want, too.”

Liam squeaks and smirks, smug this time, before he pounds into Zayn for a few, unaltered moments. He flashes Zayn an amused smile with sweat slicking his brow, turning his eyes to Zayn’s cock, the way it bobs between his thighs like he’s so desperate for the noises Liam’s lips make.

Zayn curls up a bit, letting Liam push roughly at his prostate and tries to swallow the whimper before it breaks. He drags his scruff on Liam’s shoulder, crawls into the space Liam provides with eyes closed and his ears attuned to the _‘you’re beautiful and close and young in those ways we were both the same’_ buried somewhere in the white noise.

“Tell me, babe,” Liam pleads, bruising Zayn’s hips with his fingers and burying himself in Zayn’s hole. “Just, please, say something.”

“I love the way your cock feels,” Zayn gasps, an unexpected outburst that burns brighter than supernovas and exploding galaxies. He flutters his muscles around it, the breath knocked from him when the condom unravels a bit and Liam loses coordination. “I feel so _full_. And you just – fuck, Liam, you fuck me like you – “

He bites down on the last of the words and Liam looks up with affection circling his lungs. It’s too much so Zayn rocks back, squeezes his thighs around Liam’s hips and grinds down until Liam’s head tips back for a silent whimper. He waits until Liam’s writhing beneath him before he slows down, relinquishing control to let Liam gentle him into submission.

Liam slips out a few times, blush staining his cheeks each time he has to fumble for Zayn’s hole again. They laugh with recycled oxygen filling their lungs and messy kisses replacing their endearment. Liam goes easily up onto his elbows again and uses his hips like a weapon until Zayn’s stammering and his cock is leaking heavily over tight muscles.

“Could you come like that?” Liam asks between kisses, biting at Zayn’s swollen lip. “Have you ever?”

Zayn quirks up an eyebrow and Liam drags a lazy stare over Zayn’s cock until – _oh_.

“I haven’t,” Zayn admits, pulling at the sheets when Liam leaves him earnest, impatient with tiny rocks of his hips. “I’ve never tried.”

“Would you?” Liam whispers, tilting his head, pushing into Zayn’s space and filling him completely with sharp thrusts. “I mean, I don’t know how that works but would you for me?”

Zayn whines, shutting his eyes before his muscles contract and Liam’s gasping into his mouth on every other shove. He feels Liam’s calloused fingers circle the rim, tickle against the stretched muscles until Zayn sobs into that hollow beneath his jaw and his cock dribbles thick precome over Liam’s skin.

“What would it take babe?” Liam ask, still graceless with his rhythm but he’s learning Zayn’s body, the pieces that break easily, the way he hiccups on a breath when Liam nudges sharply on that bundles of nerves.

“I – fuck, Liam, _please_.”

“Fast or slow?” Liam teases, edging Zayn’s lips with his own while alternating the angles his cock moves inside of him. “Just tell me.”

“Just fuck me,” Zayn replies with uneven breaths and Liam’s name inked to the roof of his mouth.

He pushes Liam down with nervous teeth biting at his lip and shaky hips doing most of the work. Liam palms at his waist, pushes the fringe back, wipes the sweat from his cheeks until Zayn is insufferable with this growing need. They meet on the first couple of thrusts before Zayn’s losing patience. Liam laughs demonstratively, looking awed at the way Zayn rides him and their moans echo off the walls when they can’t do anything else.

“Jesus, Zayn,” Liam moans, gasps while trying to rotate his hips and nudge up against something inside of Zayn.

Zayn gives in, whines at the heat of Liam buried deep inside. The moon shines over Liam’s skin and coats the room in a base color so reminiscent of something Zayn’s seen in art museums. Something twitches unmistakably at his core when Liam lifts his hips repeatedly and he tightens his pull on the sheets with Liam’s name whispered off his tongue, his cock spilling over Liam’s stomach. It streaks up his chest, throbbing out a flood that shines pearly under heavy stars and gentle rain.

He throbs around Liam, tightening infrequently around Liam’s cock with desperate, noisy gasps leaving his lips. It’s a little bit of nirvana and appalling in the way it leaves him feeling like he belongs to Liam.

Like this is what breaks the barrier and assaults his emotions and reminds him that, yes, _love_ feels like an appropriate adjective and noun and definition for Liam.

Liam growls, pounding up into Zayn again until his orgasm slows. He wraps careful fingers around Zayn’s and tips his hips up when he comes, staining Zayn’s shoulder with kisses. Zayn tilts his head back, lets cool air circulate through the room and soothe his skin until Liam kisses up his throat while still shoving inside of him.

“Have I told you that you’re incredible,” Liam whispers under Zayn’s jaw, circling arms around his waist. He presses their sticky bodies together and cautiously slides out, Zayn’s muscles aching with the loss. “Or beautiful. Or just perfect.”

Zayn snorts, curling fingers around the back of Liam’s head and he eases into his lap when the tension flees his bones. He stutters on a laugh, lets Liam press affectionate kisses across his brow and the corner of his mouth. Exhaustion coils around him and he smears the come on Liam’s chest into his skin, licks a grin off of Liam’s lips.

“Don’t be daft,” Zayn tells him, trying to bury his blush into Liam’s shoulder. He breathes in the rain, the thick scent of their bodies, the lingering aroma of something else –

It’s like smoke, the way it fills his lungs, but sweet like sugary tea and Zayn’s _terrified_.

“But – “

“Liam, don’t,” he says quickly.

His toes brush over the soft sheets, one of Liam’s arms tightening around his waist until their hips slot together. He sketches lazy symbols over the nape of Liam’s neck and waits until their impatient breaths turn normal again.

“No labels,” Liam mumbles over his jaw and Zayn freezes at the way it almost sounds like _‘but I’m falling for you.’_ But Liam tilts his head back to look at him sheepishly, a nervous twitch to his lips and doubt rimming his eyes.

Zayn wants to look away, offer to call up Liam a cab and hide away in a corner of his flat until this feeling – sticky, alarming, _unforgivable_ – goes away.

Instead, he nuzzles his nose to Liam’s cheek and twists their fingers together over Liam’s chest, his heart pushing relentlessly against Zayn’s knuckles before Zayn croons, “I’m okay with that.”

He feels helpless and a lot in –

He shrugs out of that feeling for a second to watch the moon cradle Liam’s face and the smile on his lips keeps Zayn in orbit a little while longer. It keeps his chin tucked to hide the color of his cheeks but his fingers twist tightly around Liam’s and the rain drums along the nearby rooftops to create the soundtrack to their quiet breathing in the night.

 

//

 

“Dude, you look _freaked_.”

Zayn’s distracted by his reflection in the bathroom mirror, fingers pushing and shaping his soft hair with a crookedly buttoned shirt that’s still halfway undone and cuffs shoved up to his elbows. The sharp angle of his bare jaw – the stubble already shaven and speckling the shaving cream in the sink – steadies his vision as he looks away from the dark circles under his eyes after a restless night between warm sheets and an even warmer Liam and he glares at Niall in the reflection.

“Not freaked but you definitely look like you’re going to shite your pants,” Louis notes, shoved down onto the couch with Niall and a bag of caramel popcorn between them.

Zayn sighs, catching haphazard fingers before they completely wreck his quiff. He wrinkles his nose and flips them two fingers in the mirror, biting against his own grin when they echo laughter through the hall. He fidgets with a few of the buttons, wipes the sweat from his palms over a pair of dark jeans and eyes the uncapped jar of hair wax for a few breaths, considering changing his looks at least five times between inhales and exhales.

“Bro, they’re gonna love you,” Niall insists, hiding his winter blue eyes behind a pair of vintage wayfarers stolen from Harry’s collection before smiling widely like _he knows_.

“Well maybe not _you_ ,” Louis drags out, grinning with an arm tucked around Niall’s pale shoulders, “but definitely your work. You’ve got ace stuff in your portfolio.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, bites back the _‘fuck off Tommo’_ in favor of smirking at him in the mirror and mocking him silently.

“Lose the shirt though,” Louis advises and Niall’s fingers twist into the stiffly styled hair on Louis’ head before he adds, “’s not you, Zaynie. You’re trying too hard.”

Zayn snorts, half-turns with crossed arms and a hip propped against the sink. “You spent two hours in this same bathroom,” he tells him, swallowing down the affection for something a little more teasing, “showering and fogging up my mirror while singing Amy Winehouse and changing outfits three times for a date with Harry tonight.”

Louis scowls and Niall pushes a chuckle into Louis’ shoulder, shoving a handful of caramel corn in his mouth. He nudges Louis with an elbow until they’re both grinning and Zayn’s stuck on the way he can’t seem to function without these two in his world.

Niall takes a long sip of Speckled Hen, still clinging to that goofy smirk and thumbing pieces of Louis’ hair back into place. “You’re too brilliant to be overlooked, Malik. It would be Maverick Comics’ loss, my man.”

Zayn smiles fondly, tilting his head before his teeth press down on his bottom lip. Niall grins and heaves out another laugh, snuggling up to Louis.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” Louis asks, his voice cooled into something serious.

Zayn flicks up an eyebrow, his jaw tightening around the words but before he can respond, a throat clears and his eyes – _and his heart_ – find Liam wedged into the other corner of the couch with his legs folded up and a sketchbook in his lap.

“Of course it is,” Liam replies with bright eyes and a loose smile. His fingers are stained in neon colors from Zayn’s paints and dark grey from the charcoal pieces and it’s a complete contrast to his honey skin and the edgy tattoos and the pull of muscles beneath.

He’s a breathing diversion with those soft, bruised lips – from lazy kisses in bed earlier – and the buzz cut and a jaw stained with stubble that left the skin on the inside of Zayn’s thighs raw earlier, after their shower and before the mind-blowing sex that still leaves Zayn half-hard at the thought.

Zayn chews his lip roughly, toys with the buttons until a few more come undone and Liam’s expression softens like he knows Zayn’s nervous and he’s twitching and he’s helplessly worried about this pitch dinner.

He just _knows_.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Liam says half-teasingly, smacking Louis’ thigh when he and Niall make kissing noises and pretend to fawn over each other. He tosses his sketchbook onto the coffee table and finishes his herbal tea – an addiction they’ve all taken on because of _Harry_ – with his eyes still on Zayn.

“Because he’s a twat and a bit of a masochist but I suppose you haven’t met that side of him,” Louis proposes, smiling against Niall’s shoulder with his fingers caught in the fluff of freshly dyed hair.

“I think he introduces himself like that,” Niall suggests, wriggling his eyebrows at Liam.

Liam scowls at him before smirking, flipping Niall off as he pushes himself off the couch.

He dances around the coffee table, the cold hardwood against bare feet and he’s halfway to the kitchen when Zayn leans in the doorway of the bathroom with his head against the frame and his teeth leaving his lip swollen.

Liam cocks his head to the side, vulnerable shoulders lifting but he stands tall in low-hanging jeans and vintage Batman shirt stained with spaghetti sauce – from his earlier ventures into the kitchen with Niall to prepare overcooked pasta and slightly burnt Italian bread. He drags languid fingers over the sharp hairs on his head and they press to the nape of his neck on instinct.

Zayn’s breath hitches and, under the quiet glow of dull lights in his flat and a late evening sky, he falls a little harder than he’s expecting to –

Not that he’s _expected_ this. Any of it. Or Liam Payne, for that matter.

“C’mere,” Liam giggles with a wiggling finger beckoning him and Zayn’s heart thumps at a constant pulse when Liam whispers _‘babe’_ under his breath.

He drags sock-covered feet over the glossy floor, shuffles around a pile of graphic novels and a mound of old clothes. He stops in front of him, squirms when Liam lifts delicate hands to fix all of the buttons and straighten his collar. His eyes stare at the birthmark, the bruised skin around his collar from rough kisses, the easy slide of Liam’s lips when he smiles.

“You’re a mess,” Liam sighs happily, still fastening buttons.

 _For you_ , Zayn thinks, wincing at the pathetic strum of his heart and the way his cheeks burn.

“Fix me,” he whispers, feeling so much like an amateur poet who wants to ink sonnets over Liam’s arms in henna. He fixes his eyes on the twisting tendons in Liam’s forearm, imagines scripting his name and verses from Frost, maybe Shakespeare there but he figures nothing would look more beautiful across that skin than the outline of his kisses or the shape of his heart.

He swallows at the way Liam looks at him fondly, confident in ways he wasn’t those first few days. He smudges colors over Zayn’s forearms with his palm before wiping away the stains on his jeans and unrolling the cuffs of Zayn’s shirt. They sway together, ignoring Louis’ cooing or Niall’s poor baritone attempts at Frankie Avalon but he smiles at that sweet Irish accent and the _‘hey Venus, oh Venus, make my wish come true’_ that dances from Niall’s lips.

“This is one of those Instagram moments Harry loves,” Louis swoons, ducking his laughter into the crook of Niall’s neck.

“Quite the lovefest going on lads,” Niall adds, pushing up his sunglasses at wink at Zayn over Liam’s shoulder.

“Shut it,” they say together and their giggle mingle with the crowded noise of the London streets outside.

Zayn wrinkles his nose, frowning a little when Liam straightens the material of his shirt but doesn’t press forward for a kiss or an _‘I’m okay with this’_ in his ear.

“Celebrate with me tonight?” he offers hesitantly, the words shoved out on one breath.

Liam smiles weakly before shaking his head, still adjusting Zayn’s collar and tucking the hem into his jeans. He curls fingers around the nape of Zayn’s neck, catching on the thick hair there before outlining the fantail at the top of Zayn’s spine.

“I can’t,” he says casually, lifting his brow when Zayn frowns. His fingers go soft, even with the calloused tips and smudged colors, before he adds, “Helping Roo pack some things up and finishing up a few pieces before my internship is over. We’re going back home to Wolverhampton for a week and then a family holiday for my birthday before courses start up again.”

Zayn blinks at him, twisting his lips and stiffening his jaw. There’s a thumb just behind his ear, stroking hollow skin and pressing against his pulse. He stuffs all of the words and poetic sentiments and the _‘please don’t go this is not meant to end yet and I haven’t told you‘_ under his lungs, beneath his stomach, past all of the little nerve-endings he’s absently dedicated to Liam. His teeth work against his lip and his fingers twitch against Liam’s hips with a sudden need to slide beneath the waistband for the soft texture of flesh hidden there.

“And you won’t be back?” he asks, choked and he shuts his eyes at the wounded noise Niall makes from the couch.

Fingers peek between buttons of his shirt to press at Zayn’s ribs and his eyes flutter open to Liam’s quiet smile, the way he looks like the morning tide.

“For university, yeah,” Liam says, still calm and casual and nowhere near heartbroken like Zayn expects.

Or hopes, fuck, he _hopes_ Liam’s heart is stopping like his is.

“But not for – “

Zayn refuses to add the _‘me’_ but it’s stilled in his throat and he drops his eyes away when Liam gives him a questioning look.

Liam leans in, forehead pressed firmly to Zayn’s. “No labels, remember?” he whispers and the rules are all rubbish. They’re taunting and the fucking bane of Zayn’s existence suddenly and he glances over Liam’s shoulder to Louis curled around Niall, sharing a beer, and staring at them like the tragic end to some Nicholas Sparks film.

“But if you ring me up sometime,” Liam adds, his grin a little cocky but still so endearing that Zayn can’t help the smile that flutters over his lips.

Niall squeaks, Louis sighing pleasantly before tightening fingers around Niall’s bony wrist.

“This is so fucking romantic,” he whines lowly, stealing Niall’s beer and Liam flips them off blindly but his eyes refuse to dart away from Zayn’s face, the clench of teeth on a bottom lip, the crushing heat of blush to his cheeks.

There’s a rough knock at the door that distracts both of them and Louis freezes for a second before shoving off the couch and Niall’s hopping so fluently over the back of it – smooth like Michael J. Fox – to collide with Louis at the door. They fight for the handle, punching and cursing until its yanked open and Harry’s wearing a loosely buttoned up shirt – ink on display against creamy skin – and skintight jeans with boots and a cheeky smile just for them.

“Oh my Romeo has arrived,” Niall teases, cackling when Louis shoves him back.

“Oi, fuck off you dick,” Louis growls, fixing his skinny tie and straightening up his waistcoat before pushing into the doorway.

Harry’s holding a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates pressed to his chest, and Louis groans immediately.

“Harry Styles, we are not a cliché,” Louis frowns but steals the flowers anyway, inhaling the summer scent of dandelions and lavender orchids. He hides his smile – and pieces of his blush – behind the gifts and Zayn recognizes that look – the one that refuses to display his damned heart on his sleeve and fights the way butterflies orbit his stomach with massive wings.

“But we are a dinner reservation that we’ll surely be late for,” Harry declares, long fingers curling a little possessively around Louis’ jutting hip. He leans in, whispering just loud enough, “And a film afterwards and I spread rose petals on my sheets and I promise I’ll make an excellent vegetable omelet with fresh fruit and vitamin water when you wake up in my bed.”

Niall groans a shamelessly noisy sound like he does after a good wank and Liam spins on his heels to grin at Harry. He shuffles back against Zayn’s chest before shaking his head fondly at the way Harry effortlessly flicks open a few buttons on Louis’ shirt.

Zayn groans into Liam’s shoulder at the way Louis stares at Harry with a slack jaw and wide eyes.

Harry winks back, steals a kiss to the corner of Louis’ cheek and twines their fingers loosely in that wedge of space separating them. Zayn loves the way Niall hums out a few bars of Katy Perry and, fuck the world, Louis looks so damn enamored with this _teenage dream_.

Louis makes a face, nudges Harry backwards and groans at the smile that pushes a dimple into Harry’s cheek.

“You’re gross,” Louis hisses, still hugging the flowers and chucking the chocolates at Niall like a reward. “And I quite like my own bed so skip the bullshit, yeah?”

Harry raises an eyebrow, pushes his spare fingers through his curls. “Naturally scented cherry lube, babe. I’m the real deal.”

Louis trembles, a sight that wrecks Liam with laughter and has Niall propping himself on the arm of the couch just to watch.

“Are you quite finished?” Louis stammers, that flare of arrogance burnt away so quickly.

Niall smirks, snatching up his beer bottle before chuckling, “My boys and their redtags. Never would’ve imagined it.”

Louis moans dejectedly, shoving Harry further down the hall and slamming the door while Liam turns shyly to push his fingers over Zayn’s hair. They refuse to look at each other, twin sets of teeth biting at helpless bottom lips and Zayn presses his nervous fingers firmly into Liam’s hip until they go numb and he forgets the meaning behind _‘I’m okay with that.’_

“You’re gonna be late,” Liam whispers, a quiet sadness in his tone.

 _I don’t want to leave_ , he thinks but it’s discouraging and weakens too much of his confidence.

He gives Liam’ hip a small squeeze, nods before shrugging away and gathering his portfolio, the propositions he had Louis type up, and slides into his leather jacket. There’s too many steps between him and the door and he looks over his shoulder at Niall instead of Liam for reassurance.

Niall nods, tips his beer toward him. Zayn misses the words he uses for encouragement because Liam’s smiling in the gap between the exit and the places he wants to be, whispering a _‘go get ‘em tiger’_ that’s far more masculine than Mary Jane Watson but the kind of reinforcement Zayn needs to yank open the door and march toward his dreams rather than his regrets.

 

//

 

“Would you rather fuck – “

Zayn groans immediately but he doesn’t hesitate to let Louis sink down onto their couch on the roof with him, shoving their hips together while Louis tilts his head to the fading sun. The sky is that beautiful smudge of cotton candy pink with highlighted indigo and rough squares of burnt tangerine from the last of the glowing sun. It’s the start of an evening, the temperature cooling off enough that Zayn shrugged into his denim jacket an hour ago with his pack of smokes in the breast pocket and his shredded at the knees jeans sliding off his hips.

He takes a mild puff of his cigarette, cocking an eyebrow at Louis when he takes a long sip of some blended strawberry-banana juice that Zayn’s certain Harry gave him before he finishes, “ – Rogue or Jubilee?”

Zayn snorts, blowing the smoke out the side of his mouth. He loves the way the light glitters off of Louis’ gelled back hair and accents his five o’clock shadow and lifts up the golden tones in his skin. He’s got on Aviators and he tangles his legs with Zayn’s under the heady breeze of London wind.

“Pyro,” Zayn says instantly, smiling widely at Louis’ groan.

“Fuck off Malik, I bet Nialler two hundred quid you’d say Iceman,” he whines, punching Zayn’s shoulder when Zayn tilts his head back with a laugh.

“You’re idiots,” Zayn replies around a breath of foggy smoke, sniffing at Louis’ citrusy cologne before glaring at the speckled pattern of love bites under the collar of his Oxford. “You’re a work of art, mate.”

Louis pulls a face, thumps another fist to Zayn’s arm before turning away to scrub away the blush.

“That twat likes to get rather friendly with his lips,” Louis admits, still woefully shy about all of it.

Zayn hums his approval, tucking an arm around Louis’ tense shoulders, squeezing to steady Louis’ breathing. He pushes his temple against the top of Louis’ head and sketches the skyline with his eyes, smiling at the faded off pinks and the roll of ocean-wide purple dusting away the scattered scarlet sheen of the sun.

“Aren’t you supposed to be preparing files and putting together graphs for some meeting with the bosses in the morning?” Zayn asks carelessly, watching the tips of the clouds kissing the early blooming stars.

Louis shrugs, nudging against Zayn for a laugh. “I’m delaying.”

“Procrastinating,” Zayn corrects with a little too much affection in his voice.

Louis sighs, steals the cigarette and Zayn refuses to point out how smoking goes against his new _healthy living lifestyle._

“S’posse I’ll pull an all-nighter with tons of coffee and _projected numbers_ , whatever that means,” Louis says with half of a sigh. He sucks in a lung-full of smoke, breathing it out casually. “Harry’s supposed to help me with it but I reckon that could be dangerous. Probably turn into another shag session and have I told you how bloody brilliant that idiot is with his mouth?”

Zayn chokes on a breath, knocking their knees. “Not lately.”

Louis hums his discontent, huffs another cloud of smoke. “I’ll finish it later.”

“Slacker,” Zayn teases, plucking the cigarette from between Louis’ fingers, pinching at it like a joint. He takes a deep inhale, letting the smoke saturate his chest with heat. “You’re incredibly lazy, bro.”

Louis shrugs again. “I’d like to think of it as a talent. It’s a job skill, really.”

Zayn laughs through the smoke and detangles Louis’ hair from the product before scratching fingers over his scalp.

“Thinking about submitting the next issue with some of the stuff I let Liam do. Just some of the panels he drew and he’s got some pretty wicked skills when it comes to drawing Violator,” Zayn admits softly, dragging the smoke across his insides until the agony burns off like ash. “It’s like – “

“Like he’s been in love with what you do for ages?” Louis wonders and he doesn’t wait for Zayn to respond before he slouches further down the couch and adds, “Yeah, me and Nialler thought the same thing. It’s like he’s trying really hard, more than the other redtags, to impress you or summat.”

“Fuck off,” Zayn huffs without anger or venom. His fingers catch on the hairs at the nape of Louis’ neck and the air shifts into a quiet cold that crawls up Zayn’s skin, soothes the twinge in his bones.

“S’true,” Louis hums, winding his fingers around the cigarette. He’s lazy about his puffs like he’s going through the motions but Zayn doesn’t complain. He pulls from beneath Zayn’s heavy arm and flicks the dying cigarette away with a serious look on his face and lips turning awkward before he asks, “Are you going to just let him leave?”

Zayn frowns like he doesn’t understand but he hears the voices in his head, repeatedly – _‘tell him you love him or forget him’_ and _‘this is what it feels like when you rip out your own fucking heart and ditch your dreams’_ – but he’s grown accustom to ignoring them. In fact, he’s muted the sound more than enough times to only hear the static and the white noise that follows.

“I’m not – “

Louis groans instantly and shoves a violent finger into Zayn’s ribs, scowling. “You’re a fucking liar. Fucking hell, you’re gonna let him just go.”

“What do you expect from me?” Zayn shouts back, a little too wound up and raspy.

Louis softens his expression, tangles fingers into Zayn’s undone quiff before shrugging.

“I expect you to _feel_ , Malik. I expect you to get over it.”

Zayn tugs his jacket closed and peels away from Louis’ fingers because he hates sympathy. He’s far from a tragedy or a _‘here lies Zayn Malik, pathetically in love but cowardly terrified of letting it consume him.’_ He has rules and rusted armor and love is a weapon he dare not touch.

Not for some three month exception who draws on Zayn’s skin and inks affection to his heart and sketches himself into Zayn’s small universe.

He thinks it’s a shame, an _atrocity_ how much he wishes Louis would look away or plead with him or stop staring at Zayn like he’s sad _for_ Zayn rather than understanding like he was when the summer started. It forces him to narrow his eyes and bite ruthlessly at his bottom lip while Louis tilts back on the couch, shoving his feet into Zayn’s lap.

“I get it, man, really I do. As your best mate, it’s my job to understand but,” Louis averts his eyes and looks longingly at the sky like it’s a compass back home. Away from London and the dizzy lives they lead and the Sunday nights curled up on Zayn’s couch with reruns of superhero films and flavorless tea. “I dunno, Zee. Dicking about for a few months and getting caught in feelings you won’t accept. Seems like a waste.”

Zayn shrugs, tries to play up to the incessant offhanded sensation behind his bones but its anticlimactic when he draws blood from anxious teeth.

“We had a good time,” Zayn mumbles, licking at the wound. “S’that so bad?”

Louis snorts and shakes his head. “Not at all, dude.”

“I’m okay with that,” Zayn whispers, lies because it leaves something sour, acidic over his tongue, and Louis flinches at the way Zayn’s fingers tighten absently around a bare ankle before his thumb rubs soft circles to the bone. They let the silence fill the spaces where they’re not touching and time escapes them as the sky churns out opposing sides of the spectrum.

There’s thirty minutes and another cigarette shared in the dust of their quiet before Louis looks up, smug and Zayn’s impatient fingers scratch under the cuff of his trousers like a warning.

“Harry says Liam’s always wanted to go to that swingin’ fair they host annually down at the docks by the Thames. Ruth is taking him before they ditch out of town,” Louis tells him like playing matchmaker is another job skill he’s kept hidden. He nudges Zayn’s shoulder with his knuckles before a mild frown fixes to his lips. “We’re all going to sort of celebrate his birthday.”

Zayn nods slowly but he feels so lost. It’s the poor side effects of his heart throbbing and that itch under his skin he’ll never be able to scratch.

“At least come by and give him a proper goodbye,” Louis adds, quieter with an earnest look on his face.

“Tommo, I don’t – “

Louis squawks out a noise and shakes his head quickly. “Harry told me I have the bluest eyes he’s ever seen last night,” he says with an intense glow to his face and he shoves up his shiny sunglasses to reveal the delight behind his eyes, “and I know it’s from some silly song I’ve heard before but that’s alright, mate. It’s ace because I realized, as annoying as that idiot is, I’m pretty okay with dating an intern. I am.”

Zayn sighs, tries not to let at the tint of Louis’ cheeks or the way he’s fighting a losing battle with his smile. He ducks his head and looks away instead, focuses in on the sky and not the way it reminds him of a background to a sketch Liam drew a week ago while tucked under Zayn’s arm on his – but it feels like _their_ – couch or the way they laughed through clumsy kisses while _the First Avenger_ played in the background.

And he’s not okay with that.

 

//

 

He’s not quite sure why, but he’s here.

The evening is a pale pink, enriched strips of lilac over the docks by the Thames. The stars are a stale glow against the stretch of faded orange, dense mauve that streak the background like a mosaic painting. The fair on the docks is a lit up city of a dozen lights shining like frozen glaciers of the spectrum. He can hear the roar of an old wooden rollercoaster, the laughter from children thumping over the timber planks, the rush of excitement picking at all of his nerve endings. He attunes his ears to the delighted screams at the top of the Ferris wheel, the static of the bumper cars, the music floating over the docks and skimming over the river below.

Zayn drags his combat boots over the wood, fists his hands into his jeans to stop the constant twitching and nervous flexing. The soft breeze kicks his fringe over his brow until he shakes it away, smiling at the moon tipping up in the distance and the way the clouds break open for the last of the sun. It reminds him of a random sketch a few nights ago, in the windowsill with _the Incredible Hulk_ in the background and Miguel playing a little louder. Just some nameless hero with a soft chin, a sharper jaw, curled with bits of stubble and buzzed hair and eyes like an Olympian god and he won’t forget the tattoos he added underneath the costume – four thick arrows, neat script chasing up the other forearm.

The world feels so small around this scene – with fireworks chasing brilliant colors into the heavens, staining the clouds a tie-dye glow and fingers twined as couples lead each other to new rides and the scent of cotton candy heavier than that of the dirty water underneath their feet – and it soaks his system until he tastes _bravery_ on this tongue, adds _‘with great power comes great responsibility’_ before he thinks he can define _‘why do we fall’_ –

Because it’s exactly what has happened, innit? He’s _fallen_.

There’s a dozen couples in line at that one spinning ride and another several people waiting to slam a sledgehammer against a scale for prizes and he shifts through the crowd with a thin smile and a heart the size of a million cities. He shoves down a hundred verses from Bruno Mars, steadies his stuttering breaths until they don’t sound as hollow, and searches the crowd for a quick second before he finds them –

Finds _him_ , really, among all of the dancing lights, the lit up sky, the groups of people piled onto this sturdy dock with the fair swallowing them in.

His fingers drag restlessly through his soft hair, his heart racing while eyeing them gathered around a darts game – Ruth hanging off of Liam’s shoulder, Niall and Josh in matching snapbacks with fingers twisted tightly around each other and cheeks bashfully pink from staring at each other too long, Harry with an oversized stuffed bear and Louis with an even larger bag of buttery popcorn.

The neon lights from the rides and the funhouse streak across Liam’s soft cheeks, the crinkles just on the edges of his eyes, the sugary shade of pink on his lips. He’s got a backwards Batman snapback, Zayn’s old Green Lantern jumper with the sleeves bunched up, X-Men briefs peeking from the low waist of his jeans, and Zayn tugs the sleeves of his Henley down over his knuckles and shoves his heart even further down in his chest. He chews at his lip and knocks through the crowd with the rush of something ticking his nerves, his skin smeared with goosebumps, and _‘your love is bright as ever even in the shadows, baby kiss me before they turn the lights out’_ sits on his tongue when the sky goes from washed out pink to urban purple.

Their eyes meet at the halfway and his smile is guilty, shameful when Liam grins back, tilting his head to admire him. It sends a pretty shiver down Zayn’s spine and wakes the throb in his cock and twists complex knots across his stomach until he’s not sure whether he’s breathing or simply going through the motions.

He waits about a half a second, with a few steps between them and the cold water below echoing the music – _in the darkest night hour, I search through the crowd_ – and the stars above like a small fireworks display before he closes the gap and fists his shaking fingers into the collar of that jumper. Zayn tugs Liam forward, presses their foreheads together to sniff at his cologne, the mint from his gum, to stare at those beautiful lips twisting into something gorgeous. He can pick out the freckles over his skin, the roasted almond of his eyes under the Technicolor around them, the rough stubble under his jaw.

Liam laughs a little breathlessly, curving thick fingers around Zayn’s hips with his thumbs stroking beneath the material to smudge over Zayn’s skin. “Would you rather be with Catwoman or – “

“ _You_ ,” Zayn interrupts, scrunching his brow and angling his head. Liam shifts so comfortably with him, noses brushing before Zayn adds, “Always you. I’d rather be with you, fight crime with you, conquer the world with you.”

Liam giggles, skims his lips over Zayn’s just before the _‘fall in love with you’_ slips off Zayn’s tongue.

“Shut up,” Liam grins, fluttering his eyelashes like a tease but Zayn tugs ruthlessly on that damn jumper and smothers the last of Liam’s words with his lips.

It’s an _almost first time_ and an _eternity finally_ starting and his heart ruts against Liam’s chest until he’s certain Liam knows what he meant to say. There’s ripples across the tendons in his neck before he curls his fingers around the nape of Liam’s neck, chasing his tongue across the stolen cotton candy in Liam’s mouth. He flicks the tip of Liam’s teeth, smiles goofily against Liam’s lips when Liam stretches his hands down to cup his arse, arms flexing a fluid motion of muscles as he knocks Zayn off his feet with a rough grab.

They kiss like it’s a _necessity_ rather than a _want_ and Zayn succumbs to the pound of his heart when Liam’s fingers dance over the small of his back and their hips fit together, breathing in unison.

“This is incredibly indecent,” Harry declares with a smile, hooking a long arm around Louis’ small shoulders.

Louis snorts, shoving a hand into Harry’s curls and looking at them so smugly like this is his creation. It’s his moment.

Like _he_ did this.

“Or fucking hot,” Niall gasps while Josh scowls, stealing a hand down the back of Niall’s cargos until he shivers quiet. He twists to look at Josh, grinning, “So no to a foursome?”

Josh groans before biting over the messy line of bruises he’s already left over Niall’s pale neck.

They ignore them in favor of teasing each other between kisses, lips brushing and ghosting but never pressing forward. They grin and shamelessly show off the blush on their cheeks with hands skimming beneath clothing to map out skin, mark little red and pink bruises like a _‘mine’_ is intended. Liam bites at his bruised lip and Zayn tickles a giggle from his lips with a flick of a tongue and they’re satellites orbiting the moon of their hearts.

Zayn sucks in a sharp breath with Liam’s thumb pressed to his hipbone before he says, “I got the deal at Maverick Comics.”

Liam beams, tilts his head to paint feathery kisses up Zayn’s jaw.

“Well, sorta,” Zayn adds with a laugh and a soft groan when fingers stroke the dip in his back. “They offered me a five part mini-series to start up. The first issue to be published in January with all of the characters I showed them. Including the space monkey and, fuck dude, you’re the reason for this.”

Liam breathes a laugh under the flex of Zayn’s jaw, rotates just enough for Zayn to see the blur of his smile before they’re kissing again.

“It was you,” Liam swears against his lips, fixing their hips just right so their chest are shoved together. “You’re brilliant and intelligent in ways I’ll never be and so fucking creative, mate, that I just – “

Zayn lets out a small whine, protesting with his lips against Liam’s. He curves trembling fingers around Liam’s neck, drags him into the kiss with messy lips and rapid tongues before he’s moaning quietly over Liam’s teeth when an earnest hand cups his arse again.

“I told them I had two conditions,” Zayn adds when they separate and, fuck, the small distance feels like kilometers even if Liam is still shoved against him, “I asked for an early bonus so I could go visit my fam back home and – “

Liam smirks like he _knows_ but he goes silent when Zayn says, “And a partner. I asked them for my own assistant, secondary artist. I asked them for you.”

There’s a hitch in Liam’s breaths and Zayn uses it to his advantage to kiss him a little gentler, like the affection in his bones is finally seeping out and he anchors Liam in the tide. He curves his fingers into the hood of the jumper, sways Liam into the music and mumbles _‘your face is all that I see, I’ll give you everything, baby love me lights out’_ over and over into Liam’s mouth.

“You two idiots,” Ruth swoons, fitting herself to Liam’s back and reaching around him to scrub fingers through Zayn’s hair. “People are looking at you.”

“I don’t care,” Liam says into Zayn’s mouth rather to anyone, smiling and blushing with errant fingers finding all of his favorite spots on Zayn to touch – the bare skin of his hip, the ink on his collarbone, the soft flesh on the inside of his elbow, the back of his thigh.

Zayn grins and knocks fingers beneath Liam’s snapback to feel the sharp hairs, diving into the thick material of his – _their_ – jumper when Louis laugh echoes through the air and Harry takes to singing off-key with Niall to every other line of ‘ _you better kiss me before our time has run out’_ and _‘nobody sees what we see.’_

“ _So_ ,” Niall drags out with Josh’s arms curled around his waist, muscles straining to hold Niall closer, “does that make him your – “

“No,” Liam says quickly, smiling and Zayn knows.

Fuck, he knows it.

“No labels,” he mutters, still rocking with Liam under the full gaze of a flaxen moon.

“Because Zayn is shit with relationships,” Louis reminds them, even with his fingers twisted around Harry’s and they’re a complete contradiction with Louis swallowing Gatorade for the electrolytes and Harry sipping on Louis’ trashy coffee for the taste of Louis’ lips.

“Awful,” Harry attaches, smothering Louis’ cheek with kisses.

“And Liam is such a virgin to,” Ruth starts but Liam groans discontent and she smiles instead of finishing.

“Not boyfriends,” Niall grins, nodding at them with Josh’s lips in his neck.

“Not at all,” Louis laughs, pushing up against them to stretch his arms around their tangled bodies. “Because _we don’t date redtags_.”

“Or fuck them,” Zayn whispers, eyeing the stain over Liam’s cheeks and the way his lips promise lube, wrinkled sheets, and a stretched hole for Zayn later.

“Or fall in love,” Liam adds but his eyes, his lips, his shaking fingers give him away but they both know they won’t say that for a few months –

And they know it’ll be on Zayn’s couch with half of Liam’s clothes mingled with Zayn’s on the floors, a shared mug of tea, _Iron Man 3_ on the television with twin sketchbooks in their laps, fingers tangled. They’ll be breathless and smiling and so desperate for each other that the words will taste like an _‘I already knew’_ and _‘hello forever’_ that neither will even notice the significance.

Not until Zayn stains his skin with the broken Batman symbol from _the Dark Knight Rises_ and Liam inks _‘why do we fall’_ across a strong shoulder blade and they’ll pretend that this is as it has always been.

But, for now, they stutter into a few more kisses while Louis goes on about Harry moving in with him next term to be closer to university and they listen when Niall talks about Josh’s band, Ruth teases Liam about taking courses and crashing at Zayn’s to study and draw and they whisper _‘I’m okay with that’_ repeatedly with the noise in the background just a little softer than the static of their hearts.

“Can I have my own desk for all my Batman stuff?” Liam teases, thumbing at all of Zayn’s tattoos when he shoves the sleeves up to Zayn’s elbows.

 _You can have your own stupid figurines and your own toothbrush at my flat and your own side of_ our _bed_ , he thinks but he grins and shoves the words away to scrunch his nose, pressing a line of kisses over Liam’s birthmark.

“Would you rather be Bruce Banner or Dick Grayson?” he asks instead, arching his spine at the way Liam ruthlessly strokes warm fingers up the knobs.

Liam snorts, bites at his lip while tucking his chin to disguise his saturated cheeks before replying, “I’d rather you take me to yours so we can marathon all of the Marvel films in order.”

Zayn rolls his eyes, rubs a few kisses over Liam’s bruised lips with four words attached to the flat of his tongue:

“I’m okay with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Was it any good? I hope so. I know it was lengthy but hopefully not incredibly boring past the first part. Thank you for taking the time to read this and, for anyone who leaves a kudos or comment -- I see them _all_ and I'm incredibly touched by each. I promise I read all the comments and I'll get better about commenting back, one day.
> 
> Shoot me a message for something a little more personal: [tumblr](http://jmcats.tumblr.com)
> 
> For the child in all of us, the love of comic books, and the brilliance of DC, Image, and Marvel Comics -- xx Jesse


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